Rafflesian Times TEST Issue 1 | Page 42

Subheader Black Holes and Revelations
Word From Above: An Interview
To find out more about the school’ s take on the confessions fad, our journalists spoke to Mr Dominic Chua and Ms Chelsia Ho from the Department of Communications, Alumni Relations and Advancement where Mr Chua is the Head of Creative Direction and Ms Ho is the Head of Communications. As it turns out, members of the school staff actually do read the confessions page! Most interestingly, we discovered that staff do review the more pressing issues discussed, adding a new dimension to the confession pages as a feedback channel, and a view into the mind of the student body.
interviewees
How did you first hear about the confession pages?
So, why do you actually read it? Do you read it for fun?
Rafflesian Times
Ms Ho
Mr Chua
I heard about the confessions when I was in the States, but in Singapore, I only found out from a Straits Times article about universities setting up their confession pages. I never really thought it would catch on here.
So what do you think of the posts?
When it first started, we liked some of the posts— like if you went to a certain floor, you’ d see a really nice sunrise or sunset, or posts about the RJ cat!
It’ s quite cute, I’ ve seen people apologising for various things, like,‘ I’ m so sorry I took your space on this bench!’
What was really quite heart-warming for me to see was when there were posts about the emotions of certain people— like, deep down, they were depressed, and others jumped in to counsel and encourage them. That was really nice to see.
Similar to that, you get posts about depression— which I guess is that darker side of being in RI, that people face self-esteem issues, like,“ Oh my gosh! Everyone’ s so much smarter than me!”“ I can’ t keep up with my studies!”
I would say that 80 percent of why we read is because we want to understand what’ s going on in the hearts and minds of students. With the other 20 percent, it was out of the corner of our eyes— is there something that we might need to forward to a school colleague? Say, if we see that there are multiple posts regarding a certain issue, for example, the closure of CCAs, we would take that as feedback and direct it to a relevant department in the school. We don’ t want all that feedback to be wasted, it should be given due consideration and weight.
You mentioned closure of CCAs- how much is actually done?
We can’ t guarantee action in that sense; it’ s a little bit beyond us. We forward it on, and say,“ Hey! You guys might just want to take note of this as we’ re seeing a number of similar posts in the last week or so.” We leave it at that, because they’ re getting hit pretty hard for this as well!
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