By Lara Tan (22A01B)
Hi everyone! My name is Lara, and I graduated from RI in 2022. I am a proud Raffles Press and Raffles Debaters alumnus, and I’m currently a sophomore at Harvard College concentrating (majoring) in Music and Government.
In case our paths hadn’t already crossed in some way or another, I’m so glad you’ve found your way to this quaint student-run website. Raffles Press was the source of some of my fondest memories in JC, a space where I could explore school-related topics with my dearest friends as well as inject new content I personally found interesting into our journalism. In my brief 2 years in Raffles Press, I was somehow able to create pieces as diverse as a review of an operatic recital, a podcast on the various languages spoken in RI and even a vlog on going vegan for a week.
One of the wonderful things about JC student journalism that I was only able to realize with the benefit of hindsight was how novel it was. To my knowledge, few secondary schools in Singapore have a dedicated journalism CCA, and going into JC, Raffles Press was the one new opportunity I felt I could afford myself (rightly or wrongly) in the marathon-sprint that was preparing for my A-Levels. As someone who did debate throughout secondary school and is very happy that that chapter of my life has closed to make way for new things, journalism is one aspect of my extra-curricular life that has stayed constant in the transition from JC to university.
Fundamentally, I think that’s because of my interest in people and their stories. My interest in amplifying, retelling or contributing my own perspective to people’s stories is something that has only increased as the world continues to get so much wider beyond JC. I now write for the arts column of the Harvard Crimson, which is such a safe haven for me to pursue an even more niche subset of my interest in journalism; arts journalism. To be honest, if I could just review concerts and interview artists (with the occasional restaurant review), I would, so that’s very much where my comfort zone lies. It’s also the intersection between journalism and another huge passion of mine: music. I’m an opera singer and if I’m feeling feisty, I pick up a violin or viola from time to time. Through my experience in Crimson Arts (as well call it), I’ve been able to interview some incredible artists and Harvard alumni and review concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and up-and-coming arts companies like White Snake Projects and Arrow Street Arts.
Of course, life isn’t all about staying within your comfort zone, and to a large extent I think it’s important to get exposed to the “bread and butter” of journalism. That’s largely what I did in Raffles Press, where I mostly wrote pieces unrelated to art, from covering the National School Games to making a video journalism piece about our beloved Chill or my very gutsy first attempt at an op-ed. Hence, while I’m grateful to be in a college that has a very vibrant journalism scene with space for me to focus on my unique interest in arts journalism, I will never forget my roots in a journalistic environment that was more scrappy and multifarious.
A significant part of my Raffles Press days that I miss compared to my student journalism experience now is that of collaborative article writing. Here, I’ve never written a group article, and that’s largely the rule, with the exception of heftier breaking news pieces. Meanwhile, in Raffles Press, group articles were more the norm, and really allowed me to learn from the writing styles of my peers and the unique perspectives they brought to the table. Nevertheless, it’s nice to have the freedom to write my own reviews now, whether that’s going out and reviewing food or concerts on the school’s dime or having one-on-one interviews with artistic personalities. It’s definitely liberating, but rather solitary, due to the (pretty much) institutionalized role of the solo student arts journalist.
To sum things up —because I learnt in Raffles Press that brevity is one of the biggest virtues— I don’t think journalism, journalistic writing, or writing is going to leave my side anytime soon. At my core, I’m still a stereotypical humanities student who is willing to write about almost anything as long as there’s some story behind it. Writing is one of the few things that truly feels like second nature to me, and I hope it’ll continue to serve me and my interests, but most importantly the communities around me whose stories fundamentally ought to be told.
