Mr. Norris would like to sincerely thank both Angie and Heather for their everything that they contributed to RDA. We could not have had the success in publishing so many great articles this year without your help. You will be dearly missed, but your legacy in RDA will carry on!
Angie Yang
High school is filled with constant changes, but one they fail to warn you about is the yearly cycle of beloved seniors leaving and the struggle of readjusting to school without them. Through RDA, I have gotten the chance to meet so many incredible upperclassmen, some of whom I still keep in touch with today. Now, I’m a senior, and it’s my turn to say goodbye to RDA.
No matter how many times we joke about how stressful Ridge is or mention how little sleep we got the night before like it’s a medal to wear, Ridge is a place that has challenged me for the better, brought me to friends who I will know for a lifetime, and holds many goofy memories. I have been able to experience all of that through activities like RDA. I joined RDA my sophomore year as someone who could barely call herself a writer but was looking for a place to report on interesting news. I remember the first article I sent to my editor and how intimidated I was for an upperclassman to read it. I remember my heart skipping a beat at a Google notification that my editor had commented on something. I remember opening it up and all the fear disappearing as I read through the comments. It was a nice balance of constructive but encouraging feedback that truly reflects the incredible environment RDA is in as a whole. In these past 3 years, I have been lucky to be a part of it all.
Every Tuesday, you could find me atop a desk (I’ve probably sat on a desk more times than in a chair at meetings). I have written articles about topics ranging from the James Webb Space Telescope to why you should write for STEM to one comparing CommonApp with a dating site. I tackled each one as if it were like a mini research project – this time, one I actually enjoyed – as I dived into what information I could find online. Through RDA, I have the space to talk about and share the topics that interest me. Over time, I found that the same nervous “barely could call herself a writer” had developed her own writing style, finally finding her voice.
If you told middle school me that I would one day be editing a newspaper, I wouldn’t believe you. Becoming STEM editor was a role reversal I never thought I could properly fulfill, but what’s fun without a little challenge? Working with writers and my co-editor, Jade, truly pushed me to become confident in my ability and exposed me to the different writing voices RDA has. I loved seeing how writers transformed their initial ideas into their final publications and being a part of the whole process.
Finally, my time as editor-in-chief has been such a great honor. I have loved being a part of all the behind the scenes that make the club run smoothly. Overall, I’m incredibly grateful for the experience of working with the club as a whole. Thank you to Mr. Norris for being such an amazing and fun advisor. Thank you to all my past “seniors” for showing me the way and all my friends for all our chaos. Thank you to all the editors for your feedback and initiative. To every writer, thank you for sharing your voice. I’ve loved hearing it and can’t wait to see what more to come.
All of high school has always been about changes, whether it’s another senior class saying goodbye or our daily lives being interrupted by APs. Through these changes, RDA has always been my constant. I knew every week, I had a special place in room 532 and now 728, where Mr. Norris would welcome everyone in. It’s a place I could hang out with my friends to destress about the day. It’s a place where I could ask upperclassmen for advice or reminisce about previous projects the underclassmen complained about. It’s a place that offers me a voice to write about anything that matters to me. It’s a place that I will truly treasure and miss as I go to college and beyond. Through it all, it’s a place where I’ve met lifelong friends and grown as a writer and person.
So, I’ll see you at the same time next week, someday.
Heather Qin
“Why do you write?” is a question I get a lot, and frankly, a question I’ve had to answer a lot as well. My answer to that is still changing. In freshman year, I joined RDA because I liked writing. I knew where my academic weaknesses were, and while I tried my hardest to conform to the expectations of those around me and pursue something in the scientific field, it became obvious that it was not for me.
At first, I wasn’t sure if writing for a school newspaper would be as fun as the creative writing I was familiar with. As a freshman, I didn’t particularly pay attention to the news or what was going on in the world, and journalism seemed similar to the rigid and factual academic writing I was required to complete in school. As I began writing more articles, I realized that I was gravitating towards topics and curiosities I was interested in, whether it was exploring something briefly mentioned in class that we didn’t have time to cover in detail or a hobby that I liked.
As the thought of college loomed on the horizon, writing turned into a very stressful thing for me. Due to the pressure of winning awards and being published in prestigious journals, I wrote excessively in order to have material to submit to contests and magazines, even if I was feeling uninspired and burnt out. I began tracking this sometime during my sophomore year, and have submitted creative writing nearly two hundred times to contests, magazines, programs, and journals in just under two years, and received well over one hundred rejections (that doesn’t mean I received close to one hundred acceptances though—from many outlets I’ve withdrawn work or never received a response). Often, I paid entry or processing fees out of my own pocket if fee waivers weren’t offered, and spent hundreds of hours in editor positions writing feedback and reading through piles of submissions without pay.
Now, even though I’ve been recognized by the New York Times, gained acceptances into prestigious summer writing programs and universities, won dozens of awards and have over twenty publications, I can’t say my experiences have been the most smooth or fulfilling. The publishing world I was briefly exposed to in high school made me both hopeful in the amount of wonderful people I’ve met and disappointed at how much work still needs to be done to make the industry equitable and just. Most high-tier journals and contests have sub-one percent acceptance rates on top of months-long response times, making me all too familiar with rejection (there is a misconception that the sciences are more competitive because they are popular, which, in my experience, is simply not true). I’ve seen how journals charge high fees for entry and feedback that are barriers for marginalized writers and how authors of color are often only valued for sharing stories related to trauma-mining and race, neglecting our incredibly diverse and varied experiences that aren’t inherently tied to our suffering. I’ve seen journals who ghost their contributors and others that failed to communicate and properly compensate writers, as well as a decent helping of plagiarism and other scandals. I noticed how award programs preferred certain types of topics, and molded my own to be steeped in these topics.
I turned to creative writing to secure my path to higher education because I wasn’t particularly good at anything else, but stopped submitting to contests and publications completely even before I turned in my first college application in November. Creative writing was present in every part of my college application, but I wish I didn’t feel compelled to tailor myself to impress an admissions officer.
While I was weighed down by insecurity, RDA was a place for me to write because I truly wanted to, not because I needed to look impressive or feed into the achievement culture so prevalent at Ridge. I’ve met a lot of people who inspire me, and learned so many new things from the articles that our club members write. It’s wonderful to see people so invested in topics they are passionate about that they wouldn’t be able to express in a purely academic setting, and reminded me how multifaceted our club is. Likewise, I also did not expect to develop a large interest in watching soccer games in junior year. But I found myself watching France play in the group stages of the World Cup with Priya during one of our club meetings—we both got frustrated when they kept fumbling chances, and eventually wrote an article together when the tournament was over.
My RDA articles have also evolved to display my growth throughout the years. As a freshman, I was intimidated by upperclassmen editors, and didn’t write many articles. Due to the pandemic disrupting that year and the latter half of the previous year, I didn’t have many chances to get to know people and practice my writing. At that time, I also wasn’t very confident about sharing my work or having it published for people to see. It’s still something I’m working on, and now that I’ll be heading to college, I’ve struggled to process how I should return to developing a healthy relationship with writing and creating. I want to write for myself more, write bad fanfiction, write in my notes app, write down my shower thoughts, write about the books I like, and write to preserve the things that I cherish. I want my writing to connect with others and be remembered by them, to be a hobby that chronicles my self discovery and growth, and I think my time in RDA has become a little part of that.