story | Justin Ong, Executive Editor photo | Bozy Lu On Oct. 16, Elm College hosted former People’s Action Party (PAP) Member of Parliament (MP) and former presidential candidate Tan Cheng Bock during a Rector’s Tea. His talk, titled “Singapore—a Meritocratic Society,” was held at the Tan Chin Tuan Lecture Theatre to a full house […]
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When seeking interviews for an article on Section 377A, The Octant faced difficulty getting students affiliated with religious groups to speak on the record. Justin writes about their silence.
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Should 377A be repealed or should it remain? A month after India’s landmark ruling to decriminalise sex between consenting males, The Octant asks students if Singapore can, or should, follow suit.
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story | Justin Ong, Executive Editor photo | Justin Ong When the Yale-NUS College Men’s Basketball team competed in an external league last semester, they often had to recruit players from outside Yale-NUS to make up the numbers. All this, just to compete as a team of five. “Games were always really tiring,” said Jerald […]
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story | Francesca Maviglia, Guest Contributor photo | Francesca Maviglia, Huffington Post, Ecuador TV, Twitter Sept. 19, 1:14pm— An earthquake of magnitude 7.4 strikes Mexico, with the epicenter 55km south of the city of Puebla and 120km from the capital, Mexico City, where I’m spending my semester abroad. It is the second quake to […]
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story | Dave Chappell, Feroz Khan, Seow Yongzhi, and Tee Zhuo illustration | Justin Ong We were both heartened and disappointed at the recent opinion article, A Letter to My Constituents, published in The Octant. The article raises an important issue — a lack of participation in the Yale-NUS College Student Government — but […]
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story | Vasudha Kataruka, Guest Reporter photo | Justin Ong, Editor-in-Chief The National University of Singapore (NUS) has changed its Undergraduate Student Health Insurance with effect from Aug. 1, 2017. All NUS and Yale-NUS College undergraduate students are covered by this policy. The previous Health Scheme had faced student criticism, mostly from individual students. […]
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story | Tee Zhuo, Guest contributor photo | Hannah James This is the second part of a two-part series. In the first part, Tee introduced the under-addressed problem of leaving our international friends behind in an empty campus on the weekends. Part one appeared in the Orientation issue of The Octant. In Part 1, I […]
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story | Pham Le Vi, Managing Editor photo | Dave Chappell, Executive Editor Eight months after Yale-NUS International Relations and Political Association (YIRPA) was suspended, its policy violations and sanctions have been revealed. They were announced by Anandita Sabherwal ’19, Director of Student Organizations of the Yale-NUS College Student Government and student representative on […]
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Story | Dave Chappell, Executive Editor Photo | Dave Chappell and Yale-NUS Public Affairs On July 29, 2017, the Yale-NUS College campus came alive with the familiar sound of students dragging luggage to their rooms. These students were the Class of 2021, Yale-NUS’s fifth cohort, arriving for their orientation. The Class of 2021 consists […]
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Story | Tee Zhuo, Guest contributor photo | Justin Ong, Editor-in-Chief It’s Saturday! You wake up late but refreshed: it’s finally the weekend! You cheerfully call out to your suitemates to check on their plans. Suite museum outing? Group study session at a nice café? But as the hollow echoes of your voice trail […]
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story | Justin Ong, Editor-in-Chief image | Paul Gallagher, Vice Rector of Cendana College As the new semester is around the corner, we are pleased to introduce two new Vice Rectors in Yale-NUS College. One of them is Professor Paul Gallagher, the incoming Saga Vice Rector, who will be taking over from Professor Eduardo […]
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story | Pericles Lewis, President of Yale-NUS College photo | Public Affairs A 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 […]
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story | Eduardo Lage-Otero, Former Vice-Rector photo | Eduardo Lage-Otero, Former Vice-Rector Around 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 […]
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story | Stanislav Presolski, Assistant Professor photo | Mercury Press 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. And even those of you who have given me and my colleagues a hard time […]
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story | Charles Bailyn, Professor and Inaugural Dean of Faculty photo | Public Affairs Well, 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 […]
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story | Kei Franklin ’17 photo | Public Affairs Four 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 […]
Read more![[From left to right] Justin Ong '19, Managing Editor, David Chappell '18, Editor-in-Chief, and Zula Badral '17, Managing Editor.](https://i2.wp.com/theoctant.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/photo6156507814483306424.jpg?fit=1279%2C900&ssl=1)
story | Justin Ong ’19 photo | Enkhzul 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 […]
Read more![[From left to right] Joyan Tan '17 and Spandana Bhattacharya ’17](https://i1.wp.com/theoctant.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/1485960_10204467138989919_195857362289888619_o.jpg?fit=2048%2C1366&ssl=1)
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, […]
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story | Doris Sohmen Pao, Former EVP Administration photo | Public Affairs It 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 […]
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