Mangaluru (The Hindu): Michelle D’Costa is the second of the three children of farmers Lazarus and Nancy Felcy D’Costa

Whenever newspapers reported the good work of a civil servant, Lazarus D’Costa made it a point to show such reports to his daughter Michelle Queenie D’Costa. This, Ms. Michelle D’Costa says, prompted her to pursue the Civil Services Examination and realise her dream of serving society as a civil servant.

Ms. Michelle D’Costa is the second of the three children of Lazarus and Nancy Felcy D’Costa, farmers at Neerude near Moodbidri. They grow arecanut and coconut on their five-acre land.

This 26-year-old engineering graduate from Neerude has secured the 387th rank in the Civil Services Examination held in 2015. “I hope to get into the IAS. I do not mind serving in the Forest and other Civil Services streams,” confides Ms. D’Costa.

Ms. Michelle D’Costa says that joining the Civil Services has been in her mind since her schooldays. Ms. Michelle D’Costa studied till the seventh standard in the St. Francis Xavier Higher Primary School in Neerude and then continued her schooling at Little Flower Secondary School at Kinnigoli. She did her pre-university course from Alva’s PU College. She graduated from R.V. College of Engineering in Information Science in 2011.

Since then Ms. Michelle D’Costa has involved herself in cracking the Civil Services Examination. She spent a few months in New Delhi where she attended tutorials and prepared in General Studies and Kannada literature. The 2015 examination was her third attempt.