Rajshahi\u2019s Mita Khatun, a final-year sociology student at the University of Dhaka and resident of Shamsunnahar Hall, has been recommended in the 49th Special BCS\u2014one of just 15 candidates selected from her discipline\u2014capping a years-long struggle through poverty, debt, and repeated setbacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mita grew up in Bagha upazila\u2019s Chaknarayanpur village, where her father, Mahabul Islam, returned after a difficult stint in Dhaka as a rickshaw driver. Back home he opened a small tea stall, selling biscuits and bananas\u2014still the family\u2019s only income source\u2014supplemented by microcredit loans that required monthly installments. School life meant constant compromises: she often bought \u201cauxiliary\u201d textbooks one by one, after exams had already begun, and her grades suffered in early terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite topping her class, Mita was steered away from the science stream in secondary school because of costs. Her science teacher, Sajidul Islam, tried to keep her in science\u2014sending her back three days in a row when she came for humanities books\u2014but financial reality prevailed. Even so, she scored GPA-5 in SSC in 2017 (1,194 marks, the highest in humanities in her upazila) from Rahmatullah Balika High School, and again GPA-5 in HSC in 2019 (1,141 marks), from Mozahar Hossain Mohila Degree College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her mother, Selina Begum, quietly prepared for the next hurdle. From Mita\u2019s SSC scholarship, she bought two goats so there would be something to sell for university admission. Teachers raised contributions, and the then-UNO Shahin Reza also assisted, enabling Mita to pursue her dream at Dhaka University\u2019s sociology department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pandemic sent her back to Bagha, where she resumed tutoring\u2014work she began in class seven\u2014to help cover both household costs and her father\u2019s loan installments. After campuses reopened, she struggled to find tuition in Dhaka because of bias against non-STEM majors, eventually securing a distant assignment for Tk 4,000 a month with a finder\u2019s fee and no guarantees. Success with that student brought more families, and Mita kept four tuitions at a time to stay afloat. \u201cEither I covered the installments and my father paid for the household, or I ran the household and he paid the installments,\u201d she said of the juggle that defined her university years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahead of the BCS viva, department chair Prof. Fatema Regina Iqbal learned Mita planned to borrow a friend\u2019s sari. Late that night, the professor sent one of her own\u2014\u201ca beautiful sari,\u201d Mita recalled\u2014which she wore to the interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On November 11, when the Public Service Commission published the 49th Special BCS final results, Mita\u2019s name appeared on the shortlist for sociology. She called home: \u201cMa, your daughter is a cadre,\u201d she told Selina, who broke down in tears. Her father urged everyone to be strong, but the family \u201ccried together,\u201d Mita said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mita, who also supports her younger brother, Ma\u2019im Islam, a top student in class nine, says she wants a career of public service\u2014and to secure a better life for her parents. \u201cI\u2019ve heard many \u2018no\u2019s,\u201d she said. \u201cThis \u2018yes\u2019 belongs to my mother, my teachers, and everyone who believed I could get here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rajshahi\u2019s Mita Khatun, a final-year sociology student at the University of Dhaka and resident of Shamsunnahar Hall, has been recommended in the 49th Special BCS\u2014one of just 15 candidates selected from her discipline\u2014capping a years-long struggle through poverty, debt, and repeated setbacks. Mita grew up in Bagha upazila\u2019s Chaknarayanpur village, where her father, Mahabul Islam, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6703,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6695\/revisions\/6703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}