Where will my destiny lie?

The Bhutan Civil Service Exam has been always considered the final hurdle for the university graduates to land in to the civil service cadre of Bhutan. Being a graduate of 2012, I too had the privilege of facing this prestigious exam of the country. For those who are well prepared and determined to join the civil service and serve the nation, it is more of an opportunity but BSCE the erstwhile RCSE is a big hurdle land a job in civil service. For me, it turned out to be a wonderful privilege to experience the procedures of this esteemed exam.

Since the day of registration for the exam, my mind had been filled with mixed feelings and thoughts about how to prepare for it, face it and clear it to reach a more comfortable platform. Having cleared the preliminary stage and got the opportunity to write the main exams of the BCSE, the final procedure of the same is to face the panel of viva voce, for which my turn came yesterday.

Writing examinations had been the oldest and most comfortable experience that we have seasoned since our admission to pre-primary but never in my life had I sat for interviews to contest for the vacancies. The only vivid experience I had was facing my own professors during the final viva voce during my final semester back in the university.

It is not as easy as one thinks. It is even more difficult to speak out at a go without organizing the thoughts in the mind first and that too in front of a panel, who are well-versed professionals and high ranked officials. This is my conclusion from my first ever interview and this calls for more preparedness, confidence and eloquence in speaking.

The questions that the member of the panel asked were not tough which requires excessive scratching of head so I have given the answers for every question without having to say “sorry sir”. However, my answers, as I reflect back were more simple and precise, without much organization of thoughts, which hampered my presentation. That I felt is due to my promptness in replying and speaking as I thought which not a good habit. I felt that, we need to take few seconds after the question to organize our thoughts.

Just for an instance, one member of the panel asked me what strategies I would suggest for contributing to the national revenue from the forest without compromising the quality and coverage of the same. To this, I promptly expressed the need of extensive plantations on the vacant Government Reserved Forest lands which can be harvested after certain years for sale in local industries so that the country need not have to implement the policy of importing timbers from outside. I added that there is a need to encourage private forestry at individual level, which will help them generate income by the sale of the products or meet their own basic requirements. These two activities won’t hamper the quality and coverage of natural forest and in this way, my response came to an end.

As I reflected back later, there are more strategies, which can be divided into different categories like the sustainable harvesting of non-wood forest products and their marketing, encouraging ecotourism and other recreational activities for the tourists, and of course the for mentioned point.

So my first interaction with interviewers has given me a good experience of facing similar panels in the future by applying the lessons which I have learnt from it. There is also a need for the contestants to keep updated with the current affairs and national history. For now, I am done with all the inputs for the BCSE 2012, and the result of which will be declared by the end of November will decide my final destiny.

The profession has been my choice, let me wait and see the chances for my destiny.