JEE Advanced Odisha topper stayed off social media for 2 years

Bhubaneswar: Seventeen-year-old Sarthak Behera of Bhubaneswar’s MBS Public School, emerged Odisha’s topper with an all India ranking (AIR) of 82 in the JEE (Advanced), the results of which were declared on Sunday.

The Bhubaneswar boy, who has secured 279 marks out of 360, said had not used smartphone and social media sites for the last two years.

Sarthak, who secured 93% marks in aggregate in the CBSE Class-12 exams, wants to do computer science from IIT Bombay or IIT Delhi.

“I want to study computer science at IIT Mumbai or Delhi. And, I would like to a computer scientist in future,” he said with a smile.

Always good at Mathematics, Sarthak was also the State topper of JEE Mains.

Son of a police officer Gopal Behera and homemaker mother, the teenager said he was confident of a good result but did not expect to become state topper.

He says hardwork, interest and motivation play a key role in succedding JEE (Advanced). “One should study with passion and stay motivated till he or she achieves the goal,” the teenager said.

Asked how many hours he devoted to studies daily, Sarthak said, “In addition to the school hours and the private coaching classes, I used to study for six-sevenhours. On a holiday, I would study for 8-10 hours.”

He thinks social media disturbs students while preparing for such exams. He said that he had stayed away from the social media for the last couple of years. “Smartphones and social media distracts me a lot so I had used any social media platforms for the last two years,” the 17-year-old said.

Sarthak loves to relax by playing computer games and watching cricket on television during his study breaks.

A total of 6,304 students from Odisha appeared for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced 2018.

Haryana’s Pranav Goyal scored 337 marks to top the JEE Advanced 2018, Sahil Jain from Rajasthan grabbed the second rank and Kailash Gupta from Delhi got the third position.

A total of 18,138 candidates qualified to take admission across the 23 IITs in the country, out of 1,55,158.