Zhao Liang Deng

When I was in high school, I did a lot of group community service. However, we did not to do any proposal back then. It is a new experience since there was never a demand for a level of cooperation for a task like this. I wouldn’t say it’s too challenging, but having a group makes this task quite different from my experience. This time since we are doing something more formal, we had to ask people for help and advice. I asked Linda and Justin was there for us the whole time.

However, because of the community service requirement, I have been drawn to VITA. Which, to me, is really cool since you would know how to do your own tax return and you would be able to help other people who are in need of it. Some people just can’t afford such service and that’s where VITA comes in. I didn’t think that there was an organization like this, but after I heard it I went to the meeting. Although it seems somewhat complicated, I think I would be willing to take the challenge.

Aside from community service, I still have not joined any club yet. But I did use a lot of the support centers. First, I think Mr. Medina is a great help, but I don’t think his office is considered a support center though. I did go to the SACC for help and they are very friendly there. Besides that, I have yet to explore. I think my next location would be the STAR career center because I think I really need help in deciding my major.

Even though I’m a Baruch Scholars, I’m still in the process of going from just doing schoolwork to doing other activities in the school as well. For freshman year, I plan on working hard on schoolwork only to assure that I do well, hopefully.

My role as a Baruch Scholars is probably to use everything that Baruch has to offer me and use these to my advantage. After absorbing what Baruch gives, then I would use everything I received and return some back to the community. For example, I’m being offered a free education, which means that I would have more money and more time. With the extra time I have, I can use that to do community service to help out the community. That is only but one example of how to help out the community. I’m starting to do that, but as I said before, I think my grade is my priority.

The culture of Baruch, for me, has a very friendly atmosphere. We are doing community service to aid the community, but sometimes I feel like this can be a burden as well because it is one more thing that we have to do. It means good, but sometimes I just feel like being an honor student has more to do. Which is different from being challenged.

The last thing that I want to mention is that whether I’m a Baruch Scholars or not, I came to college to make new friends in the process of learning. People who will not only be helpful to me in the future, but people who would actually be my friends twenty years in the future. That will be my main goal as a Baruch student.

            During multiple occasions, I have found out that “what you work for is what you get back”. There are many times in school that I slack off a bit and end up getting a lot lower than I’ve expected. However, on the other hand, I can work on something for a very long period of time feeling that I’m not doing enough and get a score higher than I’ve expected. Not only does academic works changed my view on this quote, there are many things that I’m very persistence about and I can spend a lot time doing something and eventually achieving what I thought was nearly impossible. I remember the first semester of my 10^th grade math class. I worked quite hard compared to the previous year. When my report card came out, it was a 98 next to my math class and that became my motivation to continue my math performance throughout high school. I never thought that working that hard in math would get me a 98. In fact, I’m just working a bit more than I was in the previous year. Through my own experience, every bit of effort would get you every bit of reward you deserve.

                Similarly, this is what I expect of myself in college. If I really want to get those grades, I would need to work as hard as I can. And these are my hopes and concerns for this semester. I’m traumatized by the amount of work given to me and a lot of tests that comes together in the same week. Nevertheless, hard work will prevail and that’s what I’m picturing my first semester to be.

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