babies! A Review
“While a little messy and off-kilter at certain points, babies! was enjoyable and heartwarming.” Steven and Runchen review babies!, which ran from March 29–31 at the Yale-NUS Black Box Theatre.
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Author: The Octant
Yale-NUS College Announces Opt-out Option
You asked for it, and you got it. Yale-NUS College has announced an “opt-out” option to students. We report.
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You Cannot Do It (All)
story | Cheryl Cosslett and Simonas Bartulis, Guest Contributors illustration | Justin Ong, Editor-in-Chief For the biggest, most competitive and prestigious debating tournament in Asia in early October, two of four Yale-NUS teams did not show up. It was not a problem of finances, lack of preparation, or emergency. Rather, the teams consisting of […]
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Yale-NUS Student Government Elections: Why the apathy?
Story by Elaine Li News Editor | Photo credit to Eduardo Lage Otero In the most recent Yale-NUS Student Government elections, despite repeated deadline extensions, 112 out of 126 nominees turned down their nomination. Students interviewed suggest the general disinterest level in the Student Government was the result of an unwillingness to commit, problems caused […]
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What is Our Time Here For?: The meaning of Yale-NUS College and the liberal arts
Guest Opinion by Michael Moore-Jones ’17 | Photo Credit to Public Affairs This semester at Yale University I’m taking a class called Successful Global Leadership with New York Times columnist and author David Brooks. In class David frequently refers to what he calls “resume virtues” and “eulogy virtues”. As he described them in his most recent book, “The […]
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On Justice Scalia
On Tuesday Jan 28., two and a half weeks before his eventual death, Antonin Scalia, then Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, visited the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Law to give a talk on legal interpretation. In this piece, three Yale-NUS College attendees of the talk reflect on Justice […]
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Clockwork
Welcome back to Hell… week: We hope you all came back from the mid-term break refreshed… we certainly did (check out our website theoctant.org to see our brand new makeover). Now it’s back to the grind, with internship applications and assignments due. Good luck! Lord of the Flies: Is your suite bathroom quickly turning […]
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Student and media response to Ambassador’s comments deemed unsatisfactory
Story by Dave Chappell, Managing Editor, and Spandana Bhattacharya, Editor-in-Chief | Picture credit to Dave Chappell Respondents to a recent campus-wide survey expressed disatisfaction with the reaction of the media and members of the student-body to recent comments made by Ambassador Chan Heng Chee. Respondents were asked to rate how satisfied they were with […]
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The “Illiberal Liberal” Narrative
Opinion by Francesca Maviglia, Guest Columnist | Illustration by Roger Ko There’s a tendency to attack left-wing individuals as the ones with authoritarian attitudes that has been recently growing in popularity—the “illiberal liberal” argument. This line of thought goes something like this: liberals, a label lazily used to group together a broad range of actors and realities […]
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Students Reject Call for Ambassador Chan Heng Chee’s resignation: Survey
Story by David Chappell, Managing Editor, and Spandana Bhattacharya, Editor-in-Chief | Picture credit to David Chappell By an overwhelming margin, the student body of Yale-NUS College support Ambassador Chan Heng Chee’s continuation on the Yale-NUS Governing Board, suggests a survey conducted by The Octant. The Octant conducted a campus-wide poll, following the publication of an opinion […]
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Clockwork
A tongue-in-cheek view of events around Yale-NUS College Mid-Term Break: The Octant staff will be taking a well earned rest over the upcoming break. We hope you enjoy your mid-term break and don’t miss us too much. Meanwhile, enjoy our Ambassador Special Edition. By the way, if Ambassador Chan is reading this, we’d love to […]
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GOVERNING BOARD INTERVIEW SERIES
Story by Spandana Bhattacharya, Editor-in-Chief This is the latest installment of a series of interviews with members of the Governing Board. Gautam Banerjee is the Chairman of Blackstone Singapore, a position he took on after serving as Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Singapore for nine years. He is the Vice Chairman of the Singapore Business Federation and […]
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Clockwork
A tongue-in-cheek-view of events around school CNY: The rounds of visiting will commence! Go forth and proclaim your Liberal Arts Education with no fear. May the odds be ever in your favor. Also, happy holidays to the non-Chinese and international students! Here be Dragons?: Apparently not. Yale-NUS remains mascotless after the East/West Dragon failed to […]
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Returning from Abroad
Story by Li Ting Chan, News Editor In this week’s installment, we speak to two other study abroad returnees about their experience abroad and how it has affected their homecoming. Excerpts from the interviews follow: Hui Ran Toh ’17 Studied Abroad at School for Field Studies, Costa Rica What did you do in Costa Rica? […]
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Zero, the lowest common denominator
Opinion by Scott Currie, Staff Writer | Illustration by Dave Chappell Editor’s Note: Once monthly Scott will be waxing poetic about issues relating to Yale-NUS. This may not be evident at first glance, but dig deeper and you will find meaning… we hope. As Shakespeare wrote, “so foul a sky clears not without a storm.” Nonsense. Like a […]
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Art around Campus
Story by Nicholas Lua, Feature Editor | Photos by Serena Quay Wander around Yale-NUS College enough and you are sure to have noticed the artworks displayed around campus. Why are they here? Who contributed them? Where are they located? The artworks, a collection of Southeast Asian pieces and American pieces, were granted to the college by individuals associated […]
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Adventures Abroad
Story by Li Ting Chan, News Editor Last semester, 24 members of the Class of ’17 had the opportunity to spend a semester abroad in places ranging from London to Costa Rica. This week The Octant spoke to a few of them about their overseas exploits. Excerpts from the interviews follow: Elson Ong ’17 […]
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The Liberal-arts Student’s guide to Chinese New Year
Story by Justin Ong, Opinion Editor | Illustration by Roger Ko I walk into a relative’s house, two mandarin oranges in hand. I pass them to an old uncle, twice removed. We smile at each other, and I utter a non-committal Chinese idiom bestowing longevity and good fortune. My Chinese was never that good. “You just […]
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Students rank Dining Hall and Finance as most important for DOS
story by Dave Chappell, Managing Editor In his first interview to The Octant in Oct. 2015, the new Dean of Students (DOS) at Yale-NUS College, Christopher Bridges, said that he wanted to listen to student concerns. He need listen no more. In the third week of classes, The Octant conducted an anonymous survey asking students to […]
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Clockwork
A tongue-in-cheek view of events around Yale-NUS We are back: Hopefully with a bang! We hope you didn’t miss us too much! We were busy revamping the publication, with new faces and ideas. We also recently stole Dave Chappell ’18 away from the Student Government… uh… we mean elected as our Managing Editor. Here’s to […]
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