Reporting and Writing
News
The previous year, I had heard that seniors were not very supportive of each other during the college application process and created a very toxic environment. However, I heard from several members of the class of 2023, that their year was not like that. So, I reported on how their process was, as to show the community the difference from the year before.
After the Assistant Principal of my school resigned suddenly during the school year, many roles within the school were left unfilled, sparking a major re-adjustment of roles. After his resignation, many other teachers resigned, and many students began to label the phenomena as "the Bourke Effect" (his last name was Bourke). As it was a major topic of discussion and an issue that affected the whole school, I decided to bring to light the Bourke Effect and its consequences.
Investigative Journalism
I had always known my school did not teach WWII extensively and had consistently seen peers make uneducated jokes about the time. When I found out "The Diary of Anne Frank" was no longer being taught in the middle school curriculum, I realized that Jewish voices and content about the Holocaust was completely missing in our school curriculum. After some investigation, I learned that the only students that were being taught the Holocaust were 11th grade students who elected to take the IB History course. My investigation turned into a long investigative piece about how the curricular gap came to be and how various members of the community felt about the issue once I brought it to light.
After publishing my piece on the school's lack of Holocaust education, teachers and administrators told me that they were having discussions about how to resolve the issue. A few months later, at the start of the next school year, I learned that the school was implementing grade-wide Holocaust education in History class and adding books with Jewish voices to the mandatory English curriculum. I decided to write a follow-up piece about the measures the school had taken since my original article was published. While reporting, I also learned that the school was implementing systems to prevent future gaps in the curriculum. All in all, I was amazed by the impact my reporting had sparked.
Features
I participated in the Yale Daily News' Winter Symposium for high school students in the winter of 2024. I was tasked with writing an article within a week. After some research, I learned that several Yale faculty members were engaging in efforts to educate Burmese students who were lacking education due to the civil war and military regime. I interviewed them, as well as people involved in the Gift of Education Myanmar, an organization also aiming to help Burmese students, but who are focused on primary and secondary students. I thought it was interesting how different initiatives aim to do the same thing for students of all ages in Myanmar.
As a service project, I interviewed elderly women from across the world. I hoped to address the issues of loneliness in senior citizens and the loss of personal stories through this project. I gave my interviews a specific focus of their experiences growing up during and after WWII, as it was a monumental period in time, and everyone had unique and interesting experiences with it. This story is formatted on an interactive map, as to emphasize the internationalism of these women.
Global News
After the 2021 military coup d'etat in Myanmar, I realized that many people were unaware of what was going on in the country and that it was not a big topic in the mainstream media. Wanting to shed light on the issues and bring humanity to the story, I decided to interview my aunt, who was living there at the time. She had a lot to say, and I was very excited to share her extraordinary experience and educate my peers.
Two years after the coup in Myanmar, I noticed that Myanmar had almost completely disappeared from American media and conversation. Yet, there was a whole war going on in the country, which I wanted my peers to know about. I decided to interview my aunt again about the situation, and she introduced me to Kit Young, who has a music center in Myanmar. My article focuses on their experiences, through which I hoped my audience would gain a better understanding of how the coup has changed people's lives.
My school paper was lacking coverage of the war between Russia and Ukraine, so I wanted to bring it to light through interviewing Russian and Ukrainian students. They told me about actions they had taken in response to the war, such as protesting, and how their families had been affected. I was moved to hear about Russian students who had been very active in the resistance against the war. I was glad to tell these students' stories.
Arts
After attending Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour," I remained blown away by the magnificently orchestrated show. I also realized that many of my peers did not get the chance to see her perform, as she had not come to perform in Washington D.C. I decided to give them a recap of the show and provide a review of each of the eras she performed. As a huge fan of Swifts, I had a lot of fun coming up with witty puns involving her song titles and coming up with eloquent sentences to describe the feeling of her eras.
As the arts editor of my school paper during my freshman year and with a lack of people willing to cover the arts, it became my responsibility to cover most of the events at school related to the arts. I learned that the IB Art Exhibition was taking place and wanted to cover the significant event. However, I noticed that it had been reported on often in previous years, so I attempted to find a new angle from which to cover it, regarding pandemic challenges, the students' bittersweet emotions and the fact that this was the first in person exhibition since the pandemic began. I also made sure to visit their exhibitions and photograph their art pieces to complement the story.