My messy GATE Journey 😄
TL;DR
Don't want to read the whole thing? Here's the short version:
- Was an art kid with zero interest in engineering, ended up in a bottom-tier college (GEC BSP, CSVTU) almost by accident.
- Got hooked on GATE through a random YouTube OS/semaphores video, then spent years self-teaching from free resources as a "resource scavenger."
- CSVTU scheduled end-sem exams right before GATE every year — for my first attempt this left just one free week to prepare; for my last attempt, a full month.
- Attempt 1 (GATE 2025): 51.34 marks. Attempt 2 (GATE 2026): a brutal Shift 1, near-zero sleep the night before, and a final score of 51.85 — a gain of 0.51 marks for an entire extra year of grinding.
- Somehow still landed offers from IITB and IITD M.Tech CS (round 7, SC category, score 606).
- What I'd tell a newbie: learn for understanding, keep a loose direction instead of a rigid timetable, keep notes messy instead of pretty, actually use How to Solve It by Pólya, don't rely only on YouTube, solve questions continuously instead of "after finishing the syllabus," and if you have any money to spend, spend it on a proper test series instead of stitching together free content — scavenging works, but it costs you 3x the effort.
Full story below if you want the context behind all of this.
I think it's important to explain where I came from, because my preparation did not begin with a perfect plan. It evolved naturally over two years, and honestly, out of a lot of confusion about who I even wanted to be.
The Art Years
I was a pretty average, maybe even below-average student in school. I never cared much about studies — my time went into computer games, movies, and hanging out with friends. Then, during 11th and 12th standard, I discovered art. I fell in love with it. I spent countless hours drawing, learning Photoshop, creating illustrations, and improving my skills, and I genuinely believed I wanted to build my career around it.
(Here are a few of my hand-drawn digital artworks)
Covid hit right when I was in 11th standard, so school went fully online. That meant I spent entire days drawing and painting instead of studying. Then 12th standard exams got cancelled and we all received free results. Because of Covid, we also got four attempts at JEE Mains — four. I didn't sit for a single one. Looking back now, I regret that, because my father ended up forcing me to take a drop year and prepare for JEE anyway.
Even during that drop year, my heart wasn't in it. I still wanted to do something art-related, and it showed: I scored a 67 percentile in JEE Mains, which got me nowhere.
I gave the CGPET exam purely based on luck, since there were no negative markings, and got selected into the IT department of GEC BSP.
Joining GEC and the Reality Check
After JEE, I got admitted into a government engineering college — one of the lowest-tier institutes around. Joining that college was one of the biggest reality checks of my life.
Coming from a good private school, the difference was huge. The infrastructure was poor, the coursework felt outdated, and the overall environment was disappointing. They didn't even have a dedicated classroom for CS/IT students — we shifted from room to room like we didn't belong anywhere. This isn't a criticism of the faculty as people; it's about the institute itself — its curriculum, its facilities, its ecosystem.
It felt like I had gone from a well-maintained campus into something completely neglected.
During this time, I realized that school was something given to me by my father, but college admission depended on my own performance, and since this was the best I could get into, I convinced myself it was my actual value as a student.
On top of that, the art I'd poured myself into was getting no viewers, no followers, no clear path forward, and no support from my parents.
Even after all that, I still wasn't interested in engineering itself. My mindset going into college had been simple: "College is my part-time job. Drawing is my real career." I'd attend classes because I had to, come home, and keep practicing art. Engineering was just a temporary detour — until it wasn't.
By the end of first year, I hit a kind of existential crisis and finally dropped art altogether. It remains one of the biggest decisions of my life. After that, I started resenting my past self for not studying when it mattered. That's when it really sank in: you get nothing in life by fooling around.
Stumbling Into GATE
Everything changed during the second semester. My father had been repeatedly suggesting I look into the GATE exam. His reasoning was simple: a bachelor's degree from a college like mine probably wouldn't open many doors, but an M.Tech from a reputed institute could completely change my career.
Initially, I ignored him. But because of him, out of curiosity, I searched "GATE" on YouTube. One of the first videos that came up was an Operating Systems lecture on semaphores — a Unacademy video, though I don't remember the teacher's name. I hadn't formally studied OS, or really any core CS subject, at that point. I just clicked on it because it showed up on top.
To my surprise, I could follow it. Not only did I understand the explanations, I actually solved some of the semaphore problems along with the lecture. The questions didn't feel like textbook questions — they felt like puzzles. That single experience completely changed my perception of computer science. Instead of memorizing definitions, I was solving logic. It was satisfying in a way school had never been.
That lecture pulled me in, and I wanted more. Instead of watching random videos forever, I started looking for complete courses and studying subjects one by one. That was the real beginning of my GATE journey.
Learning My Own Way
Even then, I wasn't "serious" about cracking GATE. Third year felt far away, and the actual exam felt even farther. So my early preparation was extremely relaxed — I wasn't chasing ranks, I wasn't counting study hours, I wasn't following any timetable. I was simply learning.
Part of this came from a bad prior experience. During my JEE drop year, my father had enrolled me in a coaching institute, and those places work like machines — they move at a fixed pace for thousands of students, and if your speed doesn't match theirs, you fall behind fast. I realized that style of learning just wasn't for me.
There was also guilt driving me. My father had already spent a lot of money on my JEE drop, and I felt like I owed my parents something for all the times I hadn't taken things seriously. So for GATE, I made a deliberate choice: study from free resources only, to make up for the money I'd already burned.
That wasn't easy. Studying from free YouTube content is tedious — you have to first find a good source, and most free courses are incomplete, but a newbie doesn't know that going in. I became what I jokingly call a "resource scavenger," hunting down good lectures from different teachers across YouTube and free platforms, and stitching together my own path. There was no master strategy. I just kept learning.
Oddly enough, this ended up being the most productive period of my life. I was doing so many things for the first time — making my own notes, studying to actually understand rather than just pass, filling in gaps that went all the way back to childhood. I wasn't just preparing for GATE anymore. I was rebuilding myself, and that's genuinely how I saw it.
As I finished more subjects, my confidence slowly grew, and the more I understood, the more serious I became. My goal was never to memorize just enough to score marks. I wanted to actually get better at thinking, and to understand computer science properly. Looking back, that mindset is probably the single biggest reason I stayed consistent for as long as I did.
Even the order I studied subjects in wasn't planned. I never followed anyone's recommended sequence. Whenever a subject looked unfamiliar or intimidating, I'd often pick that one first — my logic being, "if something feels alien to me, that's probably where I'll learn the most." My routine was equally unstructured: watch a lecture, solve the questions discussed in it, move to the next topic, repeat. Only later did I start solving GATE previous-year questions topic-wise.
This phase of my preparation wasn't strategic at all. It was curiosity-driven. I wasn't trying to become a topper. I was trying to become a better computer science student.
Second Year, and the Faculty Who Made the Difference
By second year, I was properly deep into GATE prep, and around this time I also started reaching out to my professors for support.
Looking back at my college experience, I have genuinely mixed feelings, because when I say "my college was bad," I actually mean two separate things.
The first is the university my college was affiliated with — CSVTU. In my opinion, the university itself was extremely poor. The curriculum, the way academics were administered, the overall quality of education — none of it met even modest expectations. It offered very little to help students actually grow.
The second is the physical college itself — the infrastructure, classrooms, and facilities, which were in terrible shape and far below anything I'd imagined when I first enrolled in engineering.
But there was one thing that completely changed my experience: our IT faculty.
The professors were genuinely amazing — supportive, approachable, and always willing to help. Whatever criticisms I have of the institution, I'll always be grateful to the faculty members who stood by me.
My Struggles & Complaints
- CSVTU didn't care about GATE prep. It scheduled end-sem exams right before GATE every year. For GATE 2025, our college exams and academic activities dragged on so long that they nearly overlapped with the GATE exam itself, leaving exactly one free week to prepare.
- The environment at college was demoralizing. Most students there were aiming for placements or a government job through SSC/CGPSC, not GATE. Nobody was actually invested in the exam except me, so I was mostly alone on this journey. Some people said they wanted to do GATE too, but they weren't fully locked in.
- My acute hemorrhoids. I couldn't sit for more than an hour without discomfort — the pressure buildup would flare things up if I sat too long. So I had to constantly switch between sitting, standing, and lying down, and take walking breaks. Sometimes those walks or lie-downs would turn into a full anime or movie session, wasting time I didn't mean to lose.
- An uncontrolled, forecasting mind. During mocks — and even the real exam — my brain would jump ahead and predict the outcome mid-test. If I couldn't solve a few questions in a row, I'd think "I'm going to score under 50 on this one." If I was solving questions back-to-back, I'd think "maybe I'll hit 80 this time." Both thoughts are bad — they pull focus away from the question in front of you and lead to silly mistakes.
GATE CSE 2025 — The First Attempt
For my first real attempt, I made only two investments: the GoClasses test series and the Made Easy book. I could solve previous-year questions, but it took a lot of time. GoClasses' tests were new and difficult for me, because studying from so many inconsistent free sources had left gaps and misconceptions in my knowledge.
On top of everything else, this was the attempt squeezed into that single free week between college exams and GATE — no cushion, no room to consolidate, straight from the classroom into the exam hall.
I was scoring around ~35 marks on full-length mocks. Still, I had hope — this was only my first attempt, taken in third year, with one more shot left in fourth year. I never even managed to finish Engineering Mathematics, Discrete Mathematics, or Compiler Design before the exam, simply because I couldn't find good free sources for them at the time (I later found out GoClasses actually had a free course for EM and DM on their website the whole time).
In GATE CSE 2025, I scored 51.34 marks (score 575, rank 3917) — to my own surprise. Everything suddenly looked promising. I felt like 65+ was well within reach on my next attempt, if I just practiced more and covered what I had missed.
GATE CSE 2026 — The Last Attempt
For 2026, I leaned fully into GoClasses, watching their free lectures on YouTube and their website. I genuinely enjoyed how they taught — no stress, concepts just settled into my head naturally. On test series this time, I was hitting 50–70 marks. Things looked genuinely good — and, for once, the university had actually given me a full month free before the exam.
But this was also my last attempt to prove myself — to my parents, and to myself. I was too serious for my own good, and it cost me. In the final weeks, my cortisol spiked hard; I was constantly solving and reviewing questions non-stop. I was also working through the free GateOverflow PYQ test series during this time, and regretted not having started it a month earlier.
I was still scoring 45–65 on actual GATE PYQ tests, but my performance was quietly degrading day by day without me even noticing. In the last week, I was so messed up my body wouldn't let me sleep properly. The night before the exam, I didn't sleep at all.
All of that — the sleep debt, the stress, the pressure — came crashing down on GATE CSE 2026, Shift 1. My entire system broke. The paper had too many long questions, even the aptitude section dragged, and there were new-pattern questions I hadn't seen before. I was wasting time without realizing it, probably from sheer exhaustion. I made mistakes I'm embarrassed to admit — like taking 2^(6) as 128 and blowing an easy DFA question because of it. I blamed IITG for everything, convinced Shift 1 was unfairly hard and Shift 2 unfairly easy. I kept thinking that if I'd been in Shift 2, I'd have easily scored 65–70, because those were exactly the kind of questions I had prepared for.
I had, in short, messed it up. I was depressed for weeks afterward; life felt colorless. I kept questioning everything — after all that effort, after all the support of people around me, to choke on the final exam? Were all those 65-mark mock scores just lies?
I already made up my mind to give GATE again, taking another drop, disappointing my family all over again.
Then the actual result came. I wasn't even waiting for it anymore, because I already knew I had messed it up. The result confirmed it: 51.85 marks (score 606, rank 2965).
Side by side: GATE 2025 — 51.34 marks (score 575). GATE 2026 — 51.85 marks (score 606). An entire year of grinding, sleepless nights, and a mental breakdown — for a gain of 0.51 marks.
The Offers
In frustration, I only applied to IITM, IISc, IITB, and IITD. I wanted IITM or IISc and nothing else — at that point, those two institutes felt like the entire purpose of my life.
Six rounds passed. Nothing came. My father was furious by then. It was a low point.
Then, on round 7, I woke up to an email from IITB. I was genuinely shocked. When I checked the COAP portal, I saw I hadn't just gotten into IITB's M.Tech CS program — I'd also received an offer from IITD's M.Tech CS program.
I should mention — my category is SC. I know it might seem unfair to some that I received these offers with a low score, and honestly, even I sometimes feel unworthy of them. But twisted as the threads of fate were, they handed me this opportunity, and I accepted it.
Looking Back
Looking back at everything, here is a list of things I did right and the things I would change if I were a newbie preparing for GATE for the first time.
What I did right:
- My mindset was correct: learn for the sake of learning, acquiring knowledge and improving yourself.
- Cut the things which are not serving you before it's too late — for me, that was art.
- I didn't create strict, unrealistic schedules. What I had was an overall direction — how much should be completed by this month, how much by this week, and what to do today.What "today" looked like:
- Finish xyz portion of the course
- Revise xyz subject
- Solve xyz questions
What I could have done differently:
- Don't waste time making pretty notes — keep notes loose and messy. I was making digital notes with proper diagrams, formatting, and trying to reinvent the wheel. What I'd do now is stick with digital notes since they're faster than handwritten ones, but keep them intentionally messy so I don't get stuck in a loop of trying to make them look pretty.
- Use problems to sharpen your understanding and refine your knowledge. I used to solve a question, and if I got the answer, move on to the next one; if not, go straight to AI for help. I wasn't actually benefiting from the questions I was solving, because I lacked a proper framework for problem-solving. During my depression phase, I read How to Solve It by George Pólya. I'd say it's a must-read for anyone with the same problem I had.
- Learn from university lecture notes and books freely available online, instead of relying ONLY on YouTube. Use Google dorking techniques — for example, here's how I'd search for group theory study materials:
"Group theory" site:edu filetype:pdf - Continuously solve questions throughout your GATE journey. There are too many questions to save for later — telling yourself "I'll start solving questions once I've finished xyz course" will only delay your progress. You'll always learn something new from a good question if you actually engage with it, rather than bailing to a solution the moment you get stuck.
- I should have purchased the GoClasses course for my second attempt. Studying only from free sources created knowledge gaps and built misconceptions — exactly what GATE CSE 2026 Shift 1 targeted. Only choose the free path if you have time, because scavenger-style self-study means you'll make more mistakes and end up working three times harder than students who bought a good course.