By Tara Sim (26A01C)

(For the full reader experience, kindly listen to “Letter To My 13 Year Old Self” by Laufey before/while reading.)

Your time in JC could be some of the most fulfilling years of your life, or nothing like the Teenage Dream. And to be frank, with J1 long gone and more than a quarter through J2, I’m still not sure which of those two categories my RI life falls in. 

Aptly put by American Songwriter in their article explaining Laufey’s “Letter To My 13-Year-Old Self”: 

“You don’t know who you are and thus everything about you feels wrong.” 

This quite perfectly captures my JC experience so far, and with the high of orientation over for J1s and the rigor of JC and CCA in full swing, although scrolling through r/SGExams might provide you with some good—albeit dated—tips on how to survive JC, here’s 3 things I wish I knew when I was in J1. 

1. Give JC a (Proper) Chance

Your Orientation experience is not at all an accurate representation of the remaining little under 2 years of time you will spend in JC. Sure, Orientation helps familiarise you with the school cheers, shows you important areas in the campus, and you get to meet new people. But I can confidently say you will end up needing cheer refreshers on the bus before match support, you will end up searching “RI school map” on Google an embarrassing amount of times trying to navigate a school you’ve been in for over a year, and you will definitely meet more people that will quietly find room in your heart. So, regardless of whether you loved or hated Orientation, the good news is that the rest of your JC time does not have to be defined by it.  

Going to school with the right mindset every day is already half the battle won. Thugging out that initial getting-to-know-your-classmates-and-CCA-mates phase, knowing that everyone around you feels as awkward as you—will be worth it. Give everything a chance, and give everything time to grow. You’re not going to click instantly with everyone, and maybe those tentative conservations will sprout inside jokes and the kind of easy laughter that makes long days feel a lot brighter. 

The people who once felt like strangers will soon become the ones you look for in a crowded room, and, sooner than you think, the ones you’ll miss—because there will be a last of everything you share together: the last Chill run, the last emergency lockdown exercise, the last time slacking off at PE, or the last break spent sitting with your friends at the canteen—whether you realise it in the moment or not. 

2. Seek comfort in your constants

For my fellow JAE kids, it might feel as though everyone around you has twice as many friends to take pictures with at school celebrations, or say hi to around school. But it doesn’t have to! Consistently making an effort to stay close to close friends you don’t see as often anymore can lighten the heavy waves of loneliness. Of course, this requires active effort. Nothing will come of nothing.

Your old friends have their own lives and if you do nothing to keep in contact, it’s easy to drift apart. That core group of friends you only see on birthdays or school holidays—the ones you no longer see every day, but time spent together somehow feels like nothing ever changed—are often the quiet constants that keep you grounded when the weight of JC feels crushing. 

Beyond friends, constants are the small, familiar things that remain unchanged when it seems like everyone and everything around you is changing. Whether that looks like daily morning routines, weekly visits to your favourite library, or monthly movie runs with your family, always having something, someone or somewhere you know will always be home to you can make a world of a difference when you feel like you’ve been treading water for too long trying to keep your head above the tide. 

3. Hurl Yourself Into the Deep End

This doesn’t need to (and shouldn’t) look like signing up for every single programme or opportunity offered, but more like pushing your self doubt and apprehension to the back of your mind and simply trying. Many RI students grapple with Imposter Syndrome, questioning whether they truly deserve their place here. In an environment filled to the brim with “closet muggers”, where everyone around you seems to be effortlessly excelling while somehow balancing schoolwork, CCA, tuition, VIA projects and relationships, it’s understandable why we may feel so. 

But the moment we recognise that we are here because of our own efforts, time, and grit, that nagging thought begins to lose its paralysing grip over us. And slowly, the belief that we are less capable than anyone else starts to quieten.

Trying doesn’t have to be huge, visible steps. It can look like proactively asking questions in class, participating in a school event you’ve been thinking about, or running for an EXCO role. Even when the outcome isn’t guaranteed, simply choosing to step forward in itself is brave. Doing or trying something your Secondary School self didn’t dare to out of fear or self-doubt is already a step in the right direction. After all, isn’t entering a new school the perfect chance to try everything to see just how much you’re capable of when you give it your all? 

And even when we face disappointment and rejection, won’t the temporary sting of not getting something always weigh less on us than eternal, haunting “what ifs”? Embracing failure when it inevitably comes and trying not to take yourself too seriously allows us to keep pushing our own boundaries, and leave JC knowing we have accomplished so much more than we initially thought possible. 

Writing this list doesn’t mean I have everything figured out. On the contrary, the reassuring truth is that nobody really does—even if it looks like they do. Perhaps JC is programmed to make you doubt your capabilities and push you to your limits, socially, with rocky friendships, managing our time, balancing academics and life; and academically (need I elaborate). 

Knowing that everyone around you is navigating this labyrinth can be oddly comforting. So even when things feel overwhelming, take solace in the constants around you, put your best foot forward, and remember that you’re in good company.