GRAD. ISSUE 1
MONDAY MAY 29, 2017
YALE-NUS, SINGAPORE
CLASS OF 2017
STAY I
t is nearly midnight on the eve of my extended deadline for this article which has been on my "to do" list all week and I am still staring at a relatively blank screen. Perhaps it is best for me to start by explaining why it is so hard for me to write. When I was 18, on the day I was heading off for College, I surprisingly fainted and found myself sitting on the shower floor. I told my father (a psychiatrist) what happened and he said, "Don't worry, you have separation anxiety. Just let me know when you are ready to go." I have learned over the last decades not to fight the anxiety but saying goodbye is just not a core competency. So pardon me as I gently avoid saying farewell. As I was thinking of what I did want to communicate, a fourletter word repeatedly came to mind--STAY!!!!!!! Of course this is not possible and arguably not needed as we never will leave YaleNUS College. It is our ethos, our guts and certainly our shared identity that a physical departure certainly cannot break. Months after my own departure, my heart is still very much with the College and with each of you. I am sure it will be the same for you. I was asked to share some advice and have settled on 3 messages. The first is around your careers—in particular the different roles you will play. I sometimes worry that we hear too much
story | Doris Sohmen-Pao, Former EVP Administration photo | Public Affairs
about living to one's potential and only doing things you are passionate about that we find ourselves in an often frustrating quest for career nirvana. Even if you find your "dream role," I guarantee you will have bad days. Maybe it would be easier if we instead focused on seeking to learn from anything put in front of us and putting our heart into all we do. I cannot describe how much I have learned from the "smallest" roles. Remain humble. Doors and insights will open where you may least expect them. My second message is around connections. We truly live in a digital age and artificial intelligence will continue to exponentially change our lives (whether we like it or not). I encourage us all to enjoy our interactions with each other and with nature. This may become more of a rarity in the future as the lines between the virtual world and reality increasingly blur. In your application to Yale-NUS you impressed us with how you have made an impact on your community (remember that essay?). Keep asking yourself that question and make sure you have an answer. My last and most important message is of gratitude. Thank you for joining us on this tremendous journey. We could not have been luckier that you all said yes to our offer and decided to take the path less traveled. I look forward to hearing about your future journeys and will cherish all the great memories of building YaleNUS College with you. These years will indeed stay with me forever. I guess it's time to go now.
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LETTER FROM THE EDITORS
A LETTER FROM THE (FIRST) EDITORS story | Joyan Tan '17 and Spandana Bhattacharya '17 photo | The Octant
Dear readers, It’s been a long time since we last wrote anything for The Octant. We do not even remember what the last article we wrote was. But we remember the first piece of writing. It was an Editors’ Note introducing Panopt, the Vice-Rector’s new academic newsletter, and ourselves. There was a picture of us, taken hastily with an iPhone along the windy corridors of Residential College 4 (RC4), our old home. Four years on, it only seems appropriate that the last article we co-write is once more, a letter to you, our readers. First, allow us to reintroduce ourselves. We are Joyan and Spandana, the founders of what you now know as The Octant, and (almost) antiquated seniors on the cusp of graduation. As adulthood beckons, nostalgia begins to set in. So indulge us as we tell the story of how The Octant came into existence. We promise there will be drama, conflict, and controversy. The Octant didn’t always exist in this form. In our freshmen year, you might even say that it didn’t exist at all. Instead, there was a ViceRector’s Academic Newsletter named Panopt from the only Vice Rector then, Dr. Eduardo Lage-Otero. Both of us worked with him and Indrani Kaliyaperumal from the VR’s Office to produce weekly copies of the newsletter, covering activities and events in the college, and encouraging contributions of all genres from students and faculty. As freshmen year drew to an end, we sat down to talk about the future of Panopt. A couple of our friends had commented that they would like to read more student opinions on important issues and that our content wasn’t always very engaging (ouch!). This feedback came after weeks of waiting by the printer and painstakingly pinning up newsletters from levels 9 to 13 in RC4. We wanted to remain relevant to the community and we realized that staying as an academic newsletter just wasn’t going to cut it. It was time to regroup. We frantically reached out to anyone who could put us in touch with editors of college newspapers around the world, followed by several bleary-eyed Skype chats and email exchanges with editors at the Yale Daily News, the Brown Daily Herald, the Dartmouth Daily and The Gazelle. Armed with information about different recruitment, distribution and operation models, we took a stab at creating a tentative structure and plan for a student newspaper. Sophomore year began with recruitment calls and interviews with everyone who had expressed interest. This sounded like a lot more work than Joyan had initially signed up for, but alas she was already in too deep and couldn’t quite pull out at this point. Spandana, meanwhile, happily brainstormed interview questions with Raeden Richardson ’17—our first Sports Editor— and all subsequent applicants had to answer the very important question: “If you could be a fruit, what fruit would you be? From a two-women team, we expanded to a team of 14 that included sports writers, features writers, news writers, opinion editors, designers, and a business and distribution role. We could not wait to
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get started on our new mission as an autonomous student publication. Initially, we thought that the key challenges would involve how to fill up and put out a four-page issue weekly that was engaging to our readers. We did not anticipate some of the challenges that we eventually faced. We began publishing more controversial articles, like What are we playing for—an article by Raeden that questioned our ties to the National University of Singapore (NUS). Students who had previously been accustomed to our relatively harmless columns like Know Your Professor and Writing Tips were taken aback and immediately raised their concerns with us. We received questions such as, “why bite the hand that feeds us?”, and (not so) friendly advice about how we might negatively impact the school by offending key donors with our articles. Those days were tough ones. We frequently received emails and Facebook messages minutes after
The inaugural issue of Panopt was published on Oct. 8, 2013.
LETTER FROM THE EDITORS publishing an issue, questioning our editorial decisions and demanding that we recall particular articles that expressed overly sensitive or controversial sentiments. We would hold midnight meetings in Joyan’s room comparing reactions we had received and trying to figure out what the best course of action would be. We are quite proud today to say that we never recalled any article, no matter how controversial or sensitive, but instead encouraged dissenters or those who felt strongly about the topic to write in with their opposing opinions. We wanted the paper to be a platform for different opinions, no matter how controversial, and it took some time for us and the community to fully internalize that motto. Another unexpected challenge we faced was the strong objection to our name, Panopt, and demands to change it. To cut a long story short, we published a guest opinion piece, arguing that the name Panopt had connotations of the Panopticon, an all-seeing prison system coined by Michel Foucault, and that the college paper should not portray such a negative perception of the college to the wider public. The view gained traction and soon the issue had seen a number of Facebook debates, a controversial cover, a petition calling from a referendum on the name, which gained 63 signatures, and a rather unpleasant forum. Ultimately, we decided as a team to refocus on our core mission and rebrand the publication, eventually reaching the name you all now know—The Octant.
college, and we were glad to see that reporting about the college in both national and international news sources reflected the college’s issues more accurately and became more nuanced moving forward. No story of the roots of The Octant would be complete without acknowledging the countless readers who faithfully read our work, offered constructive criticism and encouraged us to keep pushing our boundaries. While we cannot name everyone who shaped this paper in the early days, we would like to thank two individuals in particular. We are deeply indebted to Vice Rector Eduardo LageOtero who inspired us to create a newsletter and remained a trusted advisor through our most turbulent times. We would also like to thank President Lewis, who set a precedent for staff and faculty members at Yale-NUS by making himself available to our reporters, no matter how critical our coverage. For that, we remain grateful. … And we’ve rambled on for long enough by now. Having seen The Octant go through two successive Managing Boards after we left the organisation, we’ve been very heartened to see how much it has grown. The times when our reporting inspired the Straits Times or other international news sources are a testament to how far the paper has come from its early academic newsletter days. Thank you readers for reading the story of our roots and where we begun. It’s been a blast and we couldn’t be prouder to leave the organization in the capable hands of the next Managing Board. It’s time we moved on to our next great adventure. For the last time, Joyan and Spandana
The cover of Panopt, printed in response to the controversy. The very next semester, we launched a collaboration with the Yale Daily News where we pooled resources and launched reporting projects together which were then published in both our papers. This collaboration helped us dispel many misunderstandings that had circulated about Yale-NUS College during the launch of the
Joyan Tan ’17 and Spandana Bhattacharya ’17 co-founded the paper as an academic newsletter in October, 2013 and served as editors until May 2014. They then reimagined the newsletter as an autonomous student publication and served as its Co-Managing Editors from August–December 2014. From January-May 2015, Joyan served as Editor-in-Chief while Spandana served as Editor-at-Large, and Spandana served as Editor-in-Chief from August 2015–May 2016.
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LETTER FROM THE EDITORS
A LETTER FROM THE (CURRENT) EDITORS story | Justin Ong '19 photo | Zula Badral '17
When I first matriculated back in 2015, my initial instinct was not to explore new experiences and passions. It was to gravitate back to old ones and develop them further. That is why I joined The Octant, and only The Octant. I attended weekly meetings and wrote article after article. I didn't question the origins of the organization at the time, and just happily went with the flow. One thing led to another, and I found myself staying on in the organization through my first and second, now approaching my third year. I worked closely with then Editor-in-Chief, David Chappell ’18 and Enkhzul Badral ’17, the Outgoing Managing Editor, over the past two semesters. Though there were always challenges to overcome, the structures were already in place to ensure we didn’t have to bend over backwards too much. There was a salient style guide, an interview guide, a pitching template and a hierarchical structure to fall back on. It only occurred to me sometime last semester that The Octant used to be called Panopt, when David made an offhand comment about it during a meeting. It took me a few more months to find out that there were once interviews one had to pass to become members of the organization, and that Panopt used to be an academic newsletter. When I signed up, I took the existence of the organization as a given, like the showerheads in the Yale-NUS College suites or the projectors in the classrooms. But then again, even those aren’t exactly givens! The graduation issue is a celebration of the initiative of the Class of 2017, and the drive they had when the college was nothing but faculty, classrooms and residences. They had dreams that were as ambitious as the College’s—if not more so. They took a
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chance, and entered the college not as passive recipients of an education, but instead as active builders; one conversation, one meeting, one organisation at a time. There were Joyan Tan ’17 and Spandana Bhattacharya ’17, who had the vision to establish the first autonomous student-run publication. It might have been an incomplete vision at first, but it was a vision nonetheless. As you can already imagine, it was not all smooth sailing. The Class of 2017 had to re-adjust their expectations at every juncture, and learned that great aspirations do not necessarily lead to great outcomes. There were plans that had to be cut short, various relationships that were strained and many questions asked of the College in its early days. But they were humble in accepting the struggles and resilient in overcoming them. By the end of their time in College, the Class of 2017 did more than just fill the classrooms; they gave future students like me the opportunity to explore further and deeper than they ever had themselves. As the Class of 2017 graduate, The Octant wishes them all the best. We say this acknowledging that things have come full circle, that the tree the Class of 2017 planted has grown and bore fruit, casting a pleasant shade over the festivities today. As pleasant as the shade is, the college cannot grow complacent, but must continue to strive for more. There are many things students can do for the Class of 2017 in this period. They can write encouraging notes, make great videos, or put together a graduation issue like The Octant is doing now. But the greatest thing students can possibly do is to continue their legacy, their tenacity to explore and create. Do that, and Yale-NUS will have an identity it can always be proud of. Thank you, Class of 2017, for all you’ve done to build this institution, and the tools you’ve left us with to continue your good work. Good night and joy be with you all, Justin Ong Incoming Editor-in-Chief
EDITORIAL TEAM Editor-in-chief Dave Chappell Managing Editor Justin Ong Managing Editor Zula Badral Co-News Editor Pham Le Vi Co-News Editor Elaine Li Co-Opinion Editor Aditya Karkera Co-Opinion Editor Yip Jia Qi Co-Features Editor Yip Jie Ying Co-Features Editor Nicholas Lua Co-Arts Editor Neo Huiyuan Co-Arts Editor Terence Anthony Wang Visuals Editor Lucy Kuo DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of The Octant. Questions can be directed to yncoctant@gmail.com
OPINION
THE END OF "INAUGURAL"
Charles Bailyn teaches a class at Yale-NUS College story | Charles Bailyn, Professor and Inaugural Dean of Faculty. photo | Public Affairs
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ell, it is upon us: the graduation ceremony of the inaugural class of Yale-NUS. With the departure of the class of 2017 and of President Lewis, there will be surprisingly little that is “inaugural” at Yale-NUS in the future. But as I contemplate my brief return to Singapore to witness and participate in this momentous event, I am put in mind of three previous events that together with this graduation delineate for me the evolution of the remarkable institution that is Yale-NUS College. The first occurred in April 2011, when the Prime Minister officiated at the signing ceremony that founded Yale-NUS. I had already been part of the effort to create Yale-NUS for two years, and I was thrilled to participate in the event. But I was on the ground in Singapore for less than 48 hours before I had to return to New Haven, and I experienced a particularly bad bout of jetlag - I nearly passed out during the Prime Minister’s luncheon. It was a harbinger of the effort that the founders of the institution would need to put forth over the next few years. So I pulled myself together and fought through the discomfort, learning to work around my own limitations in an effort to realize the tremendous potential of the new undertaking. Over the next 15 months I travelled to Singapore and back ten times, which led to one of the proudest moments of my life. In July of 2012 I gaveled the first meeting of the Yale-NUS faculty into session. I looked around the room, and felt humbled and
honored by the remarkable talent that had chosen to jump off the cliff together to found this new institution. In the weeks and months that followed, we argued and fought over the first iteration of the Common Curriculum. It was a tough year in many ways, and the outcome was by no means perfect. But I think we stayed true to the ideals we had set ourselves, and got off to a strong start, strong enough that course corrections (in both senses of the word “course”) rather than a complete restart sufficed to keep us heading in the right direction. Three years later, I addressed another faculty meeting. This time I announced to my colleagues that I would be returning to Yale following the third year of operation of Yale-NUS. In my remarks, I noted that when I departed from Singapore I would become an old man, in the sense that my most important work would be behind, not in front of me. After a year away, I still believe this is true. While I am engaged in some very exciting new initiatives in New Haven, nothing will ever compare with what I was privileged to be a part of at Yale-NUS. Nevertheless, I also still believe it was the right moment to step away. I had become tired - it is exhausting work doing everything for the first time, as the class of 2017 would surely agree. For the institution, the key imperative was shifting from a startup mentality, where expansive vision and frantic enthusiasm were critical, to an emphasis on long-term sustainability, in terms of both human and material resources. This is a crucial and potentially dangerous moment in the life of any new venture, in business, academe or anywhere else. It requires new skills and different people to navigate, and I suspect that Yale-NUS is in better hands now than it would have been if I had stayed on. From this perspective, I suppose I could be considered the Steve Wozniak of Yale-NUS. And I suppose that in the future I will view Yale-NUS the way Mr. Wozniak must view the triumphant success of Apple after his involvement became merely peripheral. There is enormous pride, mixed with the wistful knowledge that one’s greatest and most intense achievements are past, and that others are now leading the way. So I salute my good friend Tan Tai Yong—whose new job will require traits associated with both Job and Jobs— and all of the faculty, students and staff of YaleNUS yet to come. We “inaugurators” are proud to have laid a foundation and created a floor for you to stand on, but the building is yours to construct. Charles Bailyn served as the Inaugural Dean of Faculty of Yale-NUS College from 2011-16.
DEAR CLASS OF 2017: YOU ARE AMAZING! story | Stanislav Presolski, Assistant Professor photo | Mercury Press
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ear Class of 2017: You are amazing! I say this knowing that I am not immune to biases, yet striving to stay objective to your true values and numerous accomplishments I cannot but reach for the superlatives.1 And even those of you who have given me and my colleagues a hard time have been orders of magnitude more gracious and kind than
the typical students I have dealt with elsewhere. Most important, though, has been your collective ability to create an engaged and caring community, which has been truly inspiring. So ever since my job interview when I witnessed the Halloween preparations in RC4, listened in on your conversations (and crucially, was offered the Wi-Fi password) I was driven to contribute to the College. Thankfully, I could start doing it when I joined Yale-NUS, but only after “unfriending” those whom I have gotten to know on the ground at Pink Dot. 2
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OPINION
By now I am convinced that you are ready to spread the Halcyon spirit into the wider world without needing much advice from professors, counselors, or even parents. Moreover, we really have no idea how exactly you should go forward. So you figure it out, dive into the World, invent new molecules, create new products, solve social issues, start a family, make yourself and other people
happy by being a street musician, theater performer, artist or why not a polite and knowledgeable (aircon) service specialist! And if something is amiss with the status quo, well, you have your four years of experience in building this place to fall back on. Just don’t go overboard applying the “principle of charity”, if I may. Your obstacle of course, is that you are still an unknown quantity to those who haven’t been paying attention to the rise of the latest hyphenated institution in Singapore. You are invisible to the employers, who are not aware of the talent we have concentrated and cultivated here. So you might get overlooked at first, but this stealth is also your strength, and you will eventually take them by surprise with the power of your liberal arts education. I vividly remember the moment I learned about Yale-NUS and the ensuing thrill of discovering something truly special that scientists yearn for. Now, it is clear that my initial excitement has been completely founded, as the College is everything that I had imagined and then some more. Thus, as graduation looms I can't wait to “friend” those of you from the pioneer Class of 2017 that I have gotten to know. Not only to see what becomes of you, but to continue to be inspired by your struggles and successes. As I am sure you'll go far and hopefully stay close! 1 Equally true for classes of 2018, 2019, and even 2020. 2 Unequal power relationship, lah.
FOUR YEARS WITH THE OCTANT
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OPINION story | Pericles Lewis, President of Yale-NUS College photo | Public Affairs
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colleague of mine studied for his freshman and sophomore years at Princeton University. As a junior, in 1967, he transferred to the beautiful, brand new campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz, on the Pacific Ocean. It was the university’s third year, the first two having been spent in temporary trailers, and in his first days as a transfer student, my friend overheard two other juniors saying, “It was so much better back when we were in the trailers.” Nostalgia is a powerful emotion; one I’ve felt often in my life, and at Yale-NUS College almost every day since we opened in Residential College Four (RC4) on the July 4, 2013. The acappella group “The Scheduling Club” seems to know my soft spot, and at the final town hall meeting of the year they sang “In My Life,” the Beatles song that was John Lennon’s first truly great composition, written—when he was just shy of his 25th birthday and already world-famous—about growing up. Maybe they noticed three years ago how emotional I got when I heard them practicing the song in the RC4 dining hall. But they probably didn’t know that this was the song I sang the one time I auditioned for a high school musical, in 9th grade. I got a non-singing part. Reading the back issues of our venerable student newspaper, it is easy to be nostalgic for the days of Panopt, published mostly in PDFs by the Vice-Rector’s office, when I contributed an article on “Collective Effervescence,” the sense of participating in a bold experiment. The first set of interview questions that Joyan and Spandana sent me were generally “soft balls,” but right from the beginning the paper did ask tough questions too, for example about the lengthy debates over the constitution of the student government. The early issues also did a great job of covering speakers and events around campus, such as the visit of LGBT activist Alex Au, as well as the founding of various Yale-NUS clubs (most of which have lasted to this day). There was a high ratio of news to opinion. In those days, you would find hard copies of Panopt by the RC4 elevator and receive soft copies in your email inbox from Vice-Rector Eduardo and Indrani. In year two, Panopt declared independence and became a student organization with the bold statement that “a newsletter that simply praises its institution without critical thought has outlived its usefulness to the community.” The news coverage improved, and challenging opinion pieces addressed sports, premed studies, problems in the common curriculum, safe spaces, health insurance, and protest posters in the lifts. The class of 2017 expressed its disillusionment and the college seemed to be going through a sophomore slump. And who can forget the great debate about the name “Panopt”? Perhaps someone assigned Bentham or Foucault in “Modern Social Thought”. Beginning in 2015, The Octant collaborated with The Yale Daily News on a number of articles, resulting for the most part in a greater understanding of Yale-NUS issues back in New Haven, while also giving our journalists here in Singapore an opportunity to learn how a more established newspaper approaches the job of covering a large university. By this stage, preparing for an interview with the Octant editors was a major part of every week in the President’s Office. In year three, Zula, Dave, and Yonatan often came to interview me—and most recently Justin has taken over that role. Probably a watershed was the article “Exodus of Deans” about the departure of some of our founding deans, a story that was picked up by the Straits Times. Increasingly in the last two years, stories in
The Octant have made the national news, as well as the Yale news, and occasionally even international outlets. Reports on the endowment, the preliminary plans for a fourth residential college, and—due to my loose lips—a scoop on the Latin Honours system all made headlines beyond the bounds of our campus. The Octant has fulfilled a crucial purpose of a free press by raising issues that concern the student body and by holding me,the college leadership, and the faculty accountable for our decisions. At times, I have disagreed with the way the paper has portrayed certain issues; at other times, I have taken the opportunity to express my views in The Octant even at the risk of making our in-house spats more visible to the outside world. Occasionally, we have asked the editors to issue a correction. I respect the efforts of several “micro-generations” of editors to report accurately but fearlessly on the state of affairs at the College without being tempted to produce “clickbait.” They have also taken fair account of issues of student privacy during critical times. What I have admired most about our students, and our student journalists in particular, is their willingness to debate challenging issues without, for the most part, turning them into personal vendettas or demanding protection from the expression of opposing views. With social media, we are all very plugged in to what is happening in higher education in other countries, and it is clear that over the last few years a growing intolerance has arisen on many campuses, where speakers whose views are unpalatable get shouted down and professors and fellow students are harassed for inadvertent offences. The pressures in favor of censorship come from both the left and the right. At Yale-NUS, we have for the most part avoided this kind of selfrighteousness, while maintaining a respectful atmosphere in which all are treated with due regard but, as our faculty statement on free expression says, “there are no questions that cannot be asked, no answers that cannot be discussed and debated.” I look forward to reading the news of Yale-NUS in many issues of The Octant to come, from the comfortable distance of New Haven. And let’s remember the words of John Lennon in his last great song, “Watching the Wheels,” just before his 40th birthday: “People asking questions, lost in confusion: / I tell them there’s no problems, only solutions.”.
In Acedmic Year 2016/17 Pericles Lewis contributed an opinion piece entitle 'Halcyon Days Ahead' to The Octant, in response to a recent Guest Opinion.
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OPINION
WHY GO TO COLLEGE?
story | Kei Franklin ’17 photo | Kei Franklin ’17 and Public Affairs
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our years ago, I sat on the porch of a wooden cabin in eZulwini, Swaziland, and contemplated whether I should go to college. Evening light danced through the lime trees, monkeys raced across the tin roof, their tiny feet hammering like thunder. The scrumptious smell of peanut curry, and the tune of Money for Nothing wafted out the door from the kitchen where my partner was cooking dinner. I was content. I had a house, a stable relationship, two tabby kittens, and a job that felt meaningful enough. Why upset all of this and go to college? The answer wasn’t obvious, and I spent a lot of time thinking about what going to college would give me that I didn’t already have. Before college, I had barely begun to unpack the Second Wave Feminist idea that the personal is political. I saw myself as an agent of change, but had not had the opportunity nor resources to truly unpack what that meant. I had not engaged deeply with the idea that I could contribute to society beyond my role as a consumer. Only through engaging with the political dimensions of my identity—through the Common Curriculum, LABs, workshops, and conversations with many of you— was I able to understand my role as a citizen, with an ability and responsibility to actively engage in conversations about broad and complex social concerns. I am deeply grateful for the serendipity that led me to discover Yale-NUS College. If it weren’t for the unique chance to be part of the inaugural class, I might never have gone to college and learned about my role as a citizen, or the potential for knowledge to effect social change. During the first two years of college, I spent most of my time looking inward—concerned with building the friendships, community, core values, organizations, and traditions that would define YaleNUS. Like many of you, I wanted to help create something new: a liberal arts school that would prioritize the seminal teachings of both “East” and “West,” be radically committed to diversity and inclusion, and innovate novel pedagogical approaches. It wasn’t until the beginning of my third year that I began to be more realistic about what Yale-NUS could be, and think seriously about the role that I, or Yale-NUS, could play in the greater world. As compared to the founding years of Yale-NUS, there is now much less to do in terms of immediate school-building. We have student organizations, a gorgeous campus, and systems for communicating with faculty and administration. I hope that, with this new internal stability, we might be able to redirect our focus outward to issues that concern our most immediate community: Singapore.
As students at Yale-NUS College, we are immensely privileged. We have access to outstanding facilities, learn from world-class faculty, get highly subsidized opportunities to study overseas, and get support for pretty much whatever we want. I have come to believe that this exceptional privilege gives us an equal responsibility to serve others: our families, our communities, our nations, the world. An education like ours means that we need to do more than simply give back what we were given. We need to question what giving back means, what education means, what progress means, what service means. We need to direct our attention, intellect, and time towards examining the world as it is and then exercise our creativity and empathy in order to reimagine how it could be. Then we need to work—collaboratively, generously, and tirelessly—to make that reimagined world a reality. Some folks might disagree with me, arguing that a Yale-NUS education does not necessitate any great responsibility, or that we would be arrogant or naive to think that our dreams can make any meaningful impact. I agree that if our imaginations of a new and better world remain in the dream-realm, they are for naught. It is only when theory is applied to practice, when hypotheses are tested, when informed action is taken, that we can begin to truly serve our communities and effect meaningful change. During my semester abroad in Uttarakhand, India, I encountered firsthand the concept of praxis—or the application of theory into practice. I was inspired by people who seemed to constantly be finding ways to apply their knowledge and expertise to serving others. One man used his background in chemical engineering and his knowledge of local religions to implement a highly successful waste management program in Nainital, India. One woman used her expertise in biotechnology to lead an eco-feminist campaign against Monsanto, and started a centre to save indigenous seeds. These folks and others encouraged me to reexamine why I chose to go to college and whether I was making best use of the knowledge and resources available to me. This past year, Yale-NUS has seen more instances of student activism than ever before. From protest-art in the elevators to Mocktant articles, Yale-NUS Divest to Take Back the Night, Parking Day to G-Spot dialogues, Skype-ins to documentary screenings, students have played a more active role in starting conversations on campus about broader political, social, and environmental issues. Despite these hopeful initiatives, there is still a long way to go. I have noticed a somewhat selfreferential quality to our student activism that diminishes its power to invite engagement beyond our campus boundary. When we see a piece of protest art, for example, we tend to
OPINION
ask “who made it?” rather than “what is it about?” I wonder if we could move the political beyond the personal, focusing less on the inter-personal histories that are so central to our small community, and more on the broader issues that we are concerned about and the change we hope to enact in the world. What might it look like to have Yale-NUS students—with newfound awareness of their status as citizens and their potential to enact political and social change, and the critical sensitivity and nuance that is often developed at Yale-NUS—directing their attention to the issues most relevant to Singapore? What implications might our on-campus activism have for greater Singapore? What conversations might we be able to start outside of Yale-NUS? What envelopes might we be able to push? Yale-NUS has a unique position in Singapore and, as students, I feel that we could do much more to start campaigns, create art, write articles,
and form organizations that spark conversations about the social, environmental, political, and personal issues most relevant to Singapore. We could apply theory to practice, using our knowledge, skills, and resources to support existing organizations and activists in Singapore who are working for positive social change. I am grateful that, on a shady afternoon in Swaziland four years ago, I decided to give college a shot. The past four years have awakened my political consciousness and have helped me to look at social, political, environmental, and interpersonal challenges with more empathy and nuance. I am just beginning to understand what it means to be a citizen (of a country, a community, the world) and what social change might really entail. I hope and trust that future Yale-NUS students will use their education to serve the world in more generous, radical, and creative ways than ever before.
THE OCTANT - A STUDENT VOICE FOR A COMMUNITY OF LEARNING story | Eduardo Lage-Otero, Former Vice-Rector photo | Eduardo Lage-Otero, Former Vice-Rector
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round four years ago, Yale-NUS College was something of a blank slate. Although a lot of planning and thought had gone into developing our innovative curriculum and the basic structure of the fledgling institution, student organizations were still in their budding state and the idea of starting a student-run publication was not heard yet in the halls of RC4. At that time, I had started my tenure as inaugural Vice Rector, working with the incoming students on academic and personal matters. One of my goals was to figure out how to keep them informed of all the things happening around the College in any given week. It was part of my job description to send regular updates to students on all kinds of issues as a way to bridge the gap between different offices and the student body. As I was meeting students and learning about their abilities and achievements, I realized that I could harness their talent to help me with this process of disseminating information. With this idea in mind, I embarked on a quest to select a student who could take on this project. After reviewing several CVs and interviewing the most promising candidates, two students became the clear frontrunners to make this a reality: Joyan Tan ’17 and Spandana Bhattacharya ’17. They had the right combination of experience and drive to create a newsletter that would be useful and appealing to their classmates. I had no idea whether this project would be successful or not, but from the start I wanted it to be student-driven and student-centered. Joyan and Spandana embraced this task with gusto and they soon launched Panopt to the community as an entirely student-run publication. They would touch base with me from time to time on what their plans were for upcoming issues and share with me some of the challenges that any start-up publication is bound to encounter. But what had started as a way to share information within the College, quickly became - in Joyan and Spandana’s capable hands the vehicle for students’ voice and perspective at Yale-NUS. The rest, as they say, is history. Panopt became a staple in our community. It soon outgrew its original, tongue-in-cheek name, and morphed into The Octant, becoming the main source of news for our community. Its remarkable journey parallels that of the Class of 2017. There have been controversies and
difficult moments, but the resilience and ingenuity that this group of students has displayed is an inspiration to all of us. What started as a two-student operation, quickly turned into a much larger enterprise that included students from other cohorts and with different perspectives and aspirations. There has been experimentation, crises, reorganizations, successes, failures, and a constant need to take stock of how things are going. And yet, in spite of all this (or because of this), The Octant has become ever more central to student life within our community. It has been an amazing journey. Joyan and Spandana and all those in the Class of 2017 who contributed to this publication should be very proud of what they accomplished and are now leaving behind. As we reach full capacity and the Residential Colleges become an even more integral part of a student’s life, having this newspaper as the common thread that weaves the student experiences together is key. I look forward to reading this issue and all the issues in the years to come.
Lage-Otero accepts an award at the Annual Octee Awards, 2016
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OPINION
PASSION, HEARTBREAK AND THE DESIRE FOR REVENGE
THE ORIGINS OF YALE-NUS ATHLETICS
The 2014 Inter College Games (ICGs) Captain’s Ball Team. story | Tinesh Indrarajah '17 photo |Tinesh Indrarajah '17
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he title above may indicate the beginning of a romance novel, and that isn’t inaccurate. This piece captures the introductory story of our athletics community through my intimate relationship with YaleNUS athletics during the first two years of this college. The love story started with my first interaction with Yale-NUS athletics. To date, I have represented Yale-NUS College in ten different sports: Floorball, Football, Captain’s Ball, Volleyball, Ultimate Frisbee, Badminton, Squash, Table Tennis, Contract Bridge, and International Chess. There was no need for awkward introductions. Not only did I participate, but held a number of leadership positions within the athletics community as well. Alongside a motley crew of dedicated batchmates, I was the Point of Contact for the inaugural Yale-NUS Athletics Council as well as Yale-NUS’ inaugural Sports Director. A huge part of my job was to organize our various sporting competitions: Inter College Games 2014 (ICGs) , Inter Faculty Games (IFGs) 2014 and ICG 2015. Sports, being by and large a collective effort meant sports teams had to be established. I took up these administrative responsibilities and rallied my batchmates together. The seniors may be familiar with the “Badminton and Table Tennis with Tinesh” at the Residential College Four Multi Purpose Hall. With no established sports teams and training schedules, the atmosphere within our sporting community was very congenial. We tried new sports, joined multiple teams to make the numbers and generally had a fun time in the MPH. Due to the small size of Class of 2017, there would also be lonely days in the MPH- three people hitting around a volleyball, two v two floorball matches or just a singles badminton game. Those weren’t the golden days for sports in Yale-NUS. All of this changed when Sylvia Gan ’17 became part of the UTown Organizing Committee for ICG 2014 during late 2013. We now had a goal to aim towards. Training became more focused; strategies were discussed; personnel were recruited. YaleNUS College was preparing for its first sporting competition against colleges who were at least four times our size. Many athletes played three or more sports, even more played at least two. In total, we had approximately 60 athletes participating in about 15 sports. That was just how committed we were. However, like in every sellout romance novel, there awaited heartbreak. The 2014 ICGs lasted for four days, and during this
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ICGs 2015: From Heartbreak to Victory. From L-R: Tinesh Indrarajah ’17, Raeden Richardson ’17 and Rakesh Prabhakaran ’17.
particular ICGs, there were only four teams: Tembusu, CAPT, USP, and YNC. At the start of the last day, we were ahead of Tembusu College by one point and just needed Tembusu to not finish second or higher in floorball. The breakdown of Tembusu’s floorball matches against CAPT and USP was devastatingly similar. In each match, Tembusu would score an early goal. We would be deflated on the sidelines. CAPT and USP would then equalize, and we would cheer for them. CAPT and USP would then go on to score another goal and race into the lead, where we would cheer even louder! But alas, with about a minute to go in both matches, Tembusu would always manage to score an equalizer to ensure them a second place finish. I had to lead our floorball team out for our last match against CAPT knowing that we already had lost the title. That was beyond doubt the most heartbreaking moment of my Yale-NUS athletics career. Now that Yale-NUS athletics knew the bitter taste of defeat, we were committed to winning the ICG trophy at all cost the following year. For ICGs 2015, I was not only an organizer, but also a participant in seven sports throughout two crazy weeks. The critical turning point for us was that we were now about 300 strong. The Class of 2018 had many remarkable athletes who complemented the talent in the Class of 2017 to produce a united, cohesive, and determined Yale-NUS squad. In the end, ICG 2015 was not really a close fight. Yale-NUS won the entire tournament with a cushion of at least 15 points more than second-placed Tembusu, with multiple gold and silver medals throughout. My favorite moment from the entire tournament was the Captain’s Ball finals. It was Yale-NUS Team A versus Yale-NUS Team B. Good things came to those who wait, and needless to say, revenge was sweet. From hope to heartbreak to victory, Yale-NUS athletics will always have a special place in my heart. To win ICG 2015 was the highlight of my Yale-NUS athletics career. My experience during Yale-NUS’s first two years illuminated the wonderful character of our community; that our passion and motivation can unite and allow us to overcome setbacks at the same time. My love story with Yale-NUS athletics has not yet ended as I will still be here for one more year. However, to my fellow athletes and devoted supporters from the Class of 2017, thank you for all your effort and contribution in making Yale-NUS athletics what it is today. May this piece act as a prologue to a largely unwritten novel. May current and future members of the Yale-NUS athletics community be inspired by the stories of your predecessors as you embark on the chapters ahead.
OPINION
SENIOR FOMO story | Lynn Lee '17 photo | Yale-NUS Admissions
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oa and I sat quietly as the rain fell. The soft wet darkness of the evening seemed to bring the lively sounds on campus closer to each other and to us, as we sat on cold tiles with echoes of song around us. It was the start of senior year and I had just returned from studying abroad. “I wish I had done more in my first year.”
I looked at the blob of light coming from the Multi-Purpose Hall, flickering with the frenzied movements of little long shapes. Across, a group of students was meeting on the steps below Café Agora, and just next to us, acapella groups filled the Performance Hall with music and laughter. “You can still do things this year.” Being on this campus makes it hard not to be doing things. Compared to my semester abroad, my time at Yale-NUS College was constantly filled with schoolwork, extracurriculars, suite latenight movies, Rector’s Teas I never even knew I was interested in, and so much more. But we were going to be graduating, and things were going to be different. I would no longer have easy access to a court and a team to play volleyball with, nor casually spend my evening hearing a world-renowned linguist discuss East Asian script, nor have the chance to take introductory level computer science courses as a Literature major, ever again. This was big for me, especially as I reflected on how I had spent my freshman year in 2013. Back then, the combination of the realization that I didn’t actually have to officially join a group and the start-up climate of the school meant that my participation in various activities was very, very casual. Three years and many changes later, I found myself in my senior year and hugely dissatisfied with the lack of seriousness and variety in my choice of activities. I was doing the same things that I had always been doing, and in a too-casual-to-actually-improve manner. That got me thinking, and I decided to spend my final year of college differently than I had spent my first few. I guess that’s when Senior Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) kicked in. Mariel had always talked to me about rock climbing, and the past two years had seen me toying with the idea a little before my hands would become filled with deadlines and distractions. This will be the year, I decided, I will make sure I do the things I have been saying I would for the past three. And so it was. I bought my climbing shoes, went to the wall every Thursday and some Saturdays, and got myself certified. Things were going as planned and I was eager to bring this new adventurous spirit into other parts of my senior year college life too. So of course I would take Introduction to Python in my final semester and learn to code. It would be a refreshing change and it was for only half a semester—low stakes, I thought, perfect. Soon, I will be the rock-climbing and coding college graduate I never thought I could be, and make up for all that I had not done in freshman year. At this point, I became increasingly conscious of my Senior FOMO tendencies, and had also discussed it both jokingly and seriously with my suitemates, who, unlike me, had had their FOMO days safely ticked off their college experiences. As all good suitemates do, they remained teasingly supportive. Some of
my days were long and draining, but I remember feeling in them an energising kind of exhaustion, wherein I constantly looked forward to the difficulty of doing the next new thing. It was particularly apt, too, that in starting these activities, I also had the chance to soak in the energy of underclassmen who were not as chronologically deviant as I was in quenching the FOMO thirst. Gradually, things gave, as we expect in the stories of even the hardiest protagonists. I saw, quite literally, physical manifestations of my frenzy when an eye allergy acted up. Family also began asking why I wasn’t going home on weekends, and while they understood when I explained that I really wanted to make the most of my final year in school, I could tell that sometimes my parents really wanted me to stay home for the night rather than just that few hours. As with Freshman FOMO, Senior FOMO comes to a screeching halt once the realisation hits home, whether in the form of a bad grade, an injury, or in my case, after a particularly challenging meeting with my Capstone advisor one afternoon in the second semester of senior year. It was then that I felt the effects of half-assing a load of activities rather than giving my best in what I truly want to do. So I decided to change a bunch of things. I dropped a class, told some people of my change in commitment for practices, and redrafted a new plan for my time. It was initially unsettling, as with all decision-aftermaths. The guilt, the humility, the realization that I had an afternoon free… I learnt valuable lessons about time management, but have also realised that I wouldn’t have done things very differently anyway. I guess FOMO never truly runs out, and I won’t be surprised if this were so even next time, in grad school, in the workplace, in anywhere else one ends up. It almost feels like I’ve absorbed an energy that is distinctly of Yale-NUS: a place brimming with the coming together of people so eager to create and witness and be a part of crazy new endeavors they believe in, be it starting a club or a conversation or a brand-new school. Perhaps the most challenging FOMO, however, emerges in the final days before graduation, days long with empty hours, yet short with the anticipation of the end. The time with people I’ve lived and studied with for the past four years remain closest to my heart, and is what I fear most to miss out on.
I picked up rock climbing in an attempt to tackle Senior FOMO.
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LITERATURE
POST
GROUND -BREAKING poem | Al Lim photo | Public Affairs
and the was that is now has been is the stomp article after we whipped our hair back and forth, is the ivory tabula rasa written on having taken the red pill and finding light (or not) at the end of the rabbit hole. I watch as you ready your caps to be thrown. *Was this written for or about the seniors? Does that even matter? Thanks to the Class of 2017 for providing much of the inspiration behind this poem. Wherever you continue in life, know that this part of it is appreciated. All in all, it has been an immense honor to be part of your journey and have you be part of mine.
UNTITLED poem | Anna Evtushenko photo | Public Affairs
I
t's I, and it's you, and it's he, and it's she. Between us we ponder the math of Cauchy, the fate of Augustus, the shape of black holes,
and how scattered destinies merge into wholes.
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gee Ann Kongsi, 2nd row, and I watched how the ground was broken. Facebook, many rows, and I watched how the fire alarm was broken. La La Luna, middle row and I was called out before the ukulele finished playing. What happened after the ground broke was a series of no-melts from Shelagh’s pool to the Hangout Hotel. Traditions were started every two seconds in the hopes of lasting two centuries in tandem with wishing more than 20 people would sign up for this thing called Yahlehnoose, which wanted a Mudkip Communist Student Gov at one point, waiting for its evolution to halcyon. Adept at deconstructing the iron cage, we drowned out the sleeper’s snores and the myths of Han Chinese/Israeli domination with talks of a butterfly dreaming, as uniform as elephant pants and a tanktop, represented by another rc on Halloween, while I watched yet another CSI assignment done at Poptart and the dodging of yet another complaint about ratch skygardens (not) for smoking. I forgot that cameras and memory last longer than nights at Mambo, too busy listening to complaints about how Yale lobster was better than rc4 and how gr9 Marvin Chun was
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We are not all brothers and sisters, you know, but here, right next to each other, we grow – we have. And we've learned, and we've loved, and we've lost – do not such shenanigans matter the most. We've made our friend's bony shoulder our home, or four milky walls, or a Greek-lettered tome. Let memories stay, and let new ones abound. From over the world, just as far are we bound. And from this great height of... adulthood, I guess? We thank you for everything, Yale-NUS. With the help of more than 20 seniors, this poem was made into a video. It is available at http://tinyurl.com/YaleNUSpoem.