RADAR, a New UMN Community for Students Who Love Creative Writing

Weekly Meeting with the UMN RADAR community, (Doc. Iglo Montana)

TANGERANG – Through several student organizations and communities, Multimedia Nusantara University (UMN), as an educational institution, has become a forum for cognitive development, soft skills, and interests. One of the new communities implementing these things is RADAR UMN, a community at UMN for students who love creative writing.

“RADAR stands for Rasa Dalam Aksara, a community about writing. So the members are the contents are indeed UMN students who have a passion for writing,” said Arifah Khansa (Rakell), the current head of the UMN RADAR.

Established on the 17th of October 2021, RADAR is still a relatively new community at UMN. Rakell shared that the community was founded because he noticed that there was no community for writing lovers at UMN.

“When you think about it, our campus’ name is ‘multimedia.’ So, I think there must be plenty of students who are experts in the field of writing. I am sure of it. So from there, I invited other interested friends; let’s build this community together,” Rakell shared. Currently, the UMN RADAR community houses 18 students, including the Daily Management Board, who come from different majors, semesters, and backgrounds.

Regarding differences in majors or backgrounds at RADAR, Elisia Widya, a member of RADAR’s novel division, also said, “for friends who like literature, we (RADAR) are open to all majors, don’t ever feel like you’re going to be laughed at. RADAR doesn’t care about your background. We only see the same goal, which is to work together.”

In the RADAR community, there are 4 creative writing divisions, namely the division of novels, short stories, poetry quotes, and script writing. Each division has different coordinators, but the Daily Management Board controls everything in the RADAR community to ensure unity. The four RADAR divisions also have different targets, visions, styles, vibes, and obstacles.

Fitria Andhika, the coordinator of the novel division, shared how the division works. The current ongoing program is writing together, making novels per chapter, and conducting community meetings weekly on Fridays to ask each other for advice and share the novel’s progress. Every completed novel is hoped to be published on writing platforms like Joylada and Wattpad. 

RADAR UMN’s Wattpad Account. (Doc. Iglo Montana)

Fitri also added, “For the vibes and environment in the Novel’s division, everyone is like family. Members who have difficulty writing would open up and share their struggles to ask for advice. Fellow members would also give the best advice possible. Everyone is also very cooperative. If someone cannot join any activities, they wouldn’t just disappear and will ask for permission. Thankfully up to this date, no one has left the division.”

Unlike the novel division, the quotes, poetry, and rhymes division (Quotes, Puisi, dan Pantun/QPP) also has its characteristics. Albert Kaleb (Albert), the coordinator of QPP, explained that in terms of the program, QPP is more about expressing feelings related to experiences or thoughts. Therefore, the division’s vibes are more open.

“We tell each other about our lives. Many want to hear news and life stories because that is one way to achieve our goal of working together at QPP,” Albert shared.

For now, it is planned that QPP will make a TikTok video mixed with music and poetry to be uploaded on UMN’s RADAR Instagram to increase engagement. And also, it is hoped that before the semester exams, RADAR will have enough content and portfolio to be shared during the Maxima event (a festival for introducing student communities to first-year students)

Even so, UMN RADAR is a community consisting of several people with different activities, thoughts, and places of residence, which unavoidably, will experience several obstacles like time management constraints due to class, assignments, and other organizations. Other more personal obstacles can also be present, like mood swings and uncertainties due to the pandemic, one of which is when will the community be able to meet offline on campus?

UMN RADAR’s Instagram account. (Doc. Iglo Montana)

This is just the start of the dynamics of the UMN RADAR community. “It is hoped that RADAR won’t stay as a community but could become an official student organization at UMN and produce high-quality content to contribute to the university and produce students who are competent at writing,” Rakell shared.

Fitri and Albert also conveyed a message of hope, “Hopefully, the contents produced by RADAR can be relatable to fellow readers and listeners. In addition, they hope that every work by RADAR can be published frequently so that it can be enjoyed by everyone and UMN students and staff can see that our community is ambitious and productive.”

By Iglo Montana | UMN News Service

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