Hello! I am Agatha, an Arts and Humanities major from the Class of 2020. I knew I wanted to study creative writing in college, so I came to Yale-NUS intent on majoring in Arts and Humanities, but in my early semesters I also entertained the idea of possibly majoring in either Literature or History. Ultimately, I stuck with Arts and Humanities because no literature or history paper I wrote ever satisfied me like writing fiction does. I took classes on many art forms and studied some Japanese art history as well, but consider myself to have concentrated unofficially in creative writing. For my capstone, I wrote (an excerpt from) a queer Young Adult (YA) novel set in Singapore. I love the feeling of urgency and immediacy in YA, and I wanted to explore questions I had as a teen myself: how do we carve out spaces for ourselves in a country where the success metrics are so clearly defined? Are other ways of life possible? I do not think I have answered any of these questions yet⁠—the novel is still a work in progress, after all this time⁠—but I hope one day to get there!

After graduation, I worked as a communications manager for a security firm, which allowed me to further develop the writing and design skills I honed in Yale-NUS. However, I also wanted to pursue my interest in Japanese culture and get closer to attaining fluency in Japanese, which I studied in secondary school and also at Yale-NUS. I thus left the firm after a year to participate in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, and I am now working as a Coordinator for International Relations (CIR) in the Kaga City Hall. As a CIR, I help facilitate exchange between Kaga and other countries, including Singapore, through translation, interpretation, and event management. I have not been here long, but believe the work will be a good mix of challenging and fulfilling!

Hi there! I am Cora Ceipek. I am originally from Austria, grew up in the US, and graduated from Yale-NUS in 2019, where I majored in Arts and Humanities and minored in Global Affairs. I have always been passionate about singing, acting ,and writing, which led me to major in Arts and Humanities and participate in creative extracurricular activities in college, including theatre productions like Hamlet and Overtime and an acapella group called Patchwork. For my capstone, I wrote a play called And Yet We Ripple, inspired by an incredible class I took with Assistant Professor Heidi Stalla about Virginia Woolf, and I directed a staged reading of the play for the Yale-NUS community. Outside of the arts, I worked in several marketing and business internships while in college. After graduation, I decided to pursue product management in a rotational programme at Visa in San Francisco. Today, I work remotely as a Senior Associate Product Manager for Visa and continue pursuing my passions of acting and singing by performing in improv troupes, plays, and musicals at local theatres in my free time.

Hello! I am Zhi Hao, a genre-fluid filmmaker based in Singapore (for now…) and my pronouns are what/if? I chose the Arts and Humanities major because I knew from the get-go that I wanted to make a film for my capstone project, I just was not sure how traditional an approach I wanted to take with it. At the time, although I knew filmmaking was something I wanted to pursue, I did not actually have a background in any artistic practice beyond writing so the major was really a way for me to discover new ways of thinking. I was gripped with anxiety then and wondered if I should have gone to a traditional film school instead but luckily, it was a gamble that paid off when I discovered a love for Greek and Roman literature during my studies at Yale-NUS. With the one-two punch of my Arts and Humanities major and my minor in Global Antiquity, epic Homeric poetry and Greek tragedy became the cornerstone of my creative work and the lens with which I viewed the world.

My capstone film, broadly speaking, deals with male body image issues and masculinity. In the summer before my final year, I had already begun thinking about it, but I kept hitting a brick wall as to how I might dramatise it without coming across as though I was trying to be an “authority” on it. I will spare you the full story, but the idea that unlocked the project for me came when I was in Italy for the summer because of a programme with Yale. I went to see the statue of David when I was in Florence and the experience struck me like a bolt of lightning. The moment I laid eyes on that gleaming edifice of a male perfected, I thought to myself— of course. The statue comes alive. The rest of the project quickly fell into place after.

Since graduation, I have been working as a freelance filmmaker, with particular focus in story development and writing. In this regard, although Yale-NUS did not change the goal I entered college with, it definitely had a profound impact on the way I think and approach my work. Through my work with companies like Infocus Asia (IFA) Media and participation in the TorinoFilmLab, I have had the privilege of working on a range of feature film and series projects from different countries in Asia and Europe. My confidence in working across continents is definitely a result of the globally competitive education I received at Yale-NUS College.

The philosophy, literature, sociology, and political science classes helped broaden my understanding of humanity, while visual art and theatre classes in the Arts and Humanities major provided me with interesting techniques I could apply and integrate into my personal filmmaking process. I was free to experiment, fail, and succeed on my own terms.

Hey, my name is Roshan!

I chose Arts & Humanities major one year into what I was certain would be a Psychology track. After attending my first theatre event, a 24-hour playwriting showcase, I realised that I had worked joyously for 12 whole hours on my script. It struck me that, if I could keep that up for the rest of my life, I’ would be a much better writer than I could ever be a psychologist. (At the very least, I am be sure I would be a hardworking one!)

I specialised in scriptwriting, but did a bunch of directing and composing as well. My capstone project was ‘Temujin’, an adaptation of epic Central Asian history. After graduating, I adapted it into a full-length audio drama with a team of other Yale-NUS alumni and students. The show performed better than we could have dreamed, and we were nominated for a Webby award alongside the BBC, HBO, and Comedy Central!

I am currently a full-time screenwriter, pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in TV Writing & Production in New York. My ultimate hope is to create more opportunities for young creatives in Singapore looking to have their work appreciated by international audiences.

Hi, I am Bryant from the Class of 2017.

I think I started out with the intention of being a Philosophy, Politics and Economics major because it sounded very much like the practical thing to do—but I soon realised that I had little to no aptitude or interest in the classes I had taken . (Great professors. Amazing classmates. Solid curriculum. The problem really was me.)

Classes like Art and the Mind or The Female Image in Japanese Art and Literature were really more up my alley, and I figured that if I did not enjoy being an economist now, forcing myself to do it as a career probably was not the best course of action either.

So, I went back to my first love, Arts and Humanities, which ultimately made my college experience much more enjoyable after two years of slogging through courses that had unapologetically pulled down my GPA.

I had been a writer and thespian throughout junior college, so I opted to go to Columbia University in my third year to hone my craft in both aspects, taking classes in playwriting and performance. This definitely had a lot of influence on my decision to write a play for my capstone project, Only Human, one of the achievements that I am proudest of. I have always liked works that explored the idea of what it means to be human, and my experiences writing an (award-winning!) play in Columbia exploring similar themes definitely laid the groundwork for what would eventually become my capstone.

After graduating, I joined the marketing department at Singapore Press Holdings, where I was able to really apply myself—conceptualising multimedia marketing campaigns from clients ranging from major motor companies to electronics giants, including scripting TV commercials, and even providing voiceover work for internal communications. I even got to go to France!

But around two years in I started getting invested in the Japanese language.

As a result, I applied and was accepted to the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, as an Assistant Language Teacher of English. I ended up being posted to the Nichinan City Board of Education in Miyazaki Prefecture, and am just starting my third year of teaching now.

During my time at Yale NUS College, I directed two major student theatre projects, Confessions and 清 Qing. The Arts and Humanities major provided me with the technical support in getting the projects off the ground. As an Arts and Humanities major, I have participated in a variety of theatre and art workshops, and have access to state-of-the-art equipment and facilities. We, as students, are given a real opportunity to engage with theatre-making first-hand.

My broad-based, multidisciplinary liberal arts education has allowed me to consider a variety of approaches when solving complex problems. It has also taught me to critically engage with the perspectives of the people I work with, whether they are artists or arts managers.

Hi! I am Zhiwen, an Arts and Humanities graduate from the Class of 2017. Born in Singapore, I now live and work in Helsinki, Finland. My work resides in the intersection of product marketing, design, and writing at a tech start-up. I actually started out in the college as a member of the Double Degree Programme in Law and Liberal Arts (with NUS Law), before deciding late in second year to drop Law and major in Arts and Humanities. I have grown up drawing and painting, but was also interested to explore related disciplines like creative writing, art history, and design. In Yale-NUS’ interdisciplinary Arts and Humanities major, I was able to pursue my hybrid interests in all these areas and more! My course experiences were truly diverse— from Life Drawing with models and creating my own 2D Animation short film from scratch, to writing Creative Non-fiction and learning about the role of Art in Totalitarian regimes in history. After graduation, I first worked for two years spearheading the planning of The Future of Our Pasts Festival, an inaugural national arts and media festival that took place in Singapore in February-March 2019. It featured arts and media projects by young artists and cultural advocates, that creatively reimagined less-known stories of communities and places from Singapore’s pasts. In late 2019, I moved to Finland to pursue a Master’s in Collaborative and Industrial Design at Aalto University as I wanted to further my growing interest in service and strategic design. I am grateful to be able to combine my diverse skills and interests in my role today— where I collaborate across teams to craft engaging stories about our tech product using different media forms.