My students left my classroom. They didn't leave my life

For this law lecturer, maintaining connections with former students over coffee — or fried chicken — is an underrated joy.

- David Tan

I first met Joanna Tan in 2009.

She was sitting centre-right, second row from the back, in the first-ever entertainment law class that I taught, and she struck me right from the start.

Unlike many of the more reverential students in my class, she was, from the outset, relaxed and convivial in her interactions with me. We would chat and laugh together before and after class, and in fact, she was the one who jokingly coined the term “David Tan Fan Club”, comprising students who took both of my entertainment law and freedom of speech modules at the National University of Singapore's law school.

Almost two decades on, I’m still in touch with her. In fact, I count her as one of my dear friends.

Joanna is now married with three children, and has been living in London for a decade. But amid our hectic work schedules, distance and family obligations, we've managed to maintain our friendship.

Over the years, I’ve hosted Joanna and her husband to dinner at my place, where we tuck into roast suckling pig — our favourite dish. We've had candid conversations about her career as a lawyer and her eventual pivot to become a medical doctor.

Just last month, she dropped by with a bottle of Cristal champagne, no less, to commemorate “all those years”, as she put it.

She’s not the only one. As a law professor for almost 20 years in Singapore and Melbourne, I’ve taught many students, and I have to admit that with the passing of time, many have become a distant blur. I suspect that for many of them, their old teachers have also been relegated to a forgotten past.

But there are those with whom a magical bond remains. Maintaining those bonds - despite distances in space and time — is, to me, an underrated joy.

MAINTAINING CONNECTIONS