Some students have it all mapped out. They start university knowing exactly how academics, co-curriculars and a future career are all going to fit together — but A&S alumnus Tom Yun wasn’t one of them.
“I took advantage of my undergraduate experience to figure all that out,” says Yun, who earned his bachelor of arts in 2020 as a member of University College and is now a web journalist with CTVNews.ca.
It was largely curiosity — not a plan — that brought him to U of T in the first place. He was attracted to U of T’s breadth of programs and courses offered in a downtown setting and considered a range of subjects, including economics, statistics and computer science, before settling on public policy with minors in Canadian studies and political science. That same curiosity inspired him to volunteer for U of T’s student newspaper, the Varsity, between first and second years.
“I think it was just my interest in learning more, in wanting to dig and know more about our community and the world we live in, from what it means to be a student to how the University functions,” he says. “I thought, ‘If I want answers, a good way to find them is through volunteering for the paper.’”
He soon rose to associate news editor and then news editor, breaking bigger stories and covering high profile events. He even interviewed U of T President Meric Gertler after he was elected to his second term in May 2017, discussing a wide range of topics from free speech to the provincial budget.
“I didn't really think that because I worked in journalism during school, it was going to be where I ended up. I didn’t have any experience with my high school newspaper at all. Some people know from day one they're going to go into journalism, but that certainly wasn’t the case with me,” he says. “I thought it was just really cool to see how my written words could have an impact, and it was also cool to be able to dig around and find out more about the world and the community that I live in.”
If he was looking for answers at the Varsity, he may have gotten more than he bargained for — including to the question of what his career would look like after graduation. His journalism experience led to an internship at Maclean’s magazine for five months in 2018 and a stint as a breaking news reporter for the Toronto Star from March 2019 to September 2020. At the Star, he wrote about crime, COVID-19, real estate, urban issues, the Toronto Raptors championship and more.
Since February, he’s been a web journalist with CTVNews.ca, covering everything from a sign war that erupted between two businesses in a small Virginia town to Elon Musk’s appearance on Saturday Night Live in May — plus plenty of COVID-19 stories, of course.
His U of T studies — and not just his time at the Varsity— continue to play an important role in his burgeoning journalism career. Writing essay after essay helped him develop the skills to be concise, an essential skill when writing news stories. He recalls learning and engaging with prominent Canadian figures, such as in a seminar class co-taught by former Ontario Premier Bob Rae, currently Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, and Mel Cappe, professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, former president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy and former high commissioner for Canada to the United Kingdom. He says his political science, Canadian studies and public policy courses helped him develop a greater understanding of the broad issues impacting Canadians. His coverage of the 2018 Ontario provincial election at Maclean’s comes to mind.
“My academic background definitely helped me bolster the way I thought about the issues and the divisions that underpinned that election and the political climate in Canada at large,” he recalls. “It’s all definitely part of how getting a good understanding of some of the broad issues our country faces in our politics and public policy and having that background knowledge plays a role in some of the ways I'm able to think about news stories.”
And the excitement he felt breaking news stories back at the Varsity is still with him.
“I think that feeling is amplified by the times we're living in right now with the pandemic because a lot of the stories I write about are COVID-19 related,” he says. “It’s having a front seat for this huge event that's definitely going to be talked about for probably hundreds of years to come. I think it feels great to be a part of that and a part of the coverage that is quite important these days.”