SangHun Baek: my freshman year

Just like any other immigrants who came before me I was taught that America is a land of opportunity. However, I learned for myself that you can’t just wait for an opportunity to come knocking on your door but to find one you must seek it. America is a land of opportunity but only for those who seeks it and it is with such belief that I think of Baruch College. Baruch College is filled with myriad opportunities for success but you must go find it yourself.

At first, I thought of Baruch as just a commuter’s school where it’s nothing more than a building of classrooms to go in and learn and leave right after. I didn’t know how to utilize all the valuable assets and opportunities for my advantage nor did I know of such existence. But through my participation in Community Service Project, I learned not only that Baruch is filled with assets and opportunities for me to use to become successful but how to properly utilize them to maximize the benefit and reach my goal.

Due to Community Service Project and thanks to my freshman seminar class I got to learn to use library and it’s vast web data to search for a right place to volunteer and serve. Learning how to use the library website and its database benefited me greatly for the project and it will benefit me even more throughout my years in Baruch. My peers, as bright as they are, had and shared many brilliant ideas for the project. We also aid one another in times of need. My peers became my strong column on which I can trust and lean on. Also I joined a professional business fraternity this semester and through its pledging process I learned how to properly manage time and to stay strong under pressure and stress. Although there were much more that I have come to know of and have used for my Community Service Project; my peers, fraternity, professors and learning how to use library effectively helped me in greater extent as they all helped me to develop myself as a student who is ready for any challenge and who knows how to properly use all the assets and opportunities in Baruch for my advantage for success in my courses and further years in Baruch.

By participating in Community Service Project I also came to really appreciate and value community service. At first, I saw community service as something people do in order to feel better about themselves but now I see it as something much bigger and meaningful. We may be individuals but we are part of a community and our world is collection of many different communities. Serving in a community may not seem like a big deal at first, but as wild fire that devours mountains can spread from something as small as a spark from a lighter, our service to community spreads to many other and can change this world for a better place for not just me but everyone else to live in. Therefore, I now believe that community service is not an option but something I should partake in and learn to make part of my life.

Throughout next 3 years, I plan to explore even further what Baruch has to offer.  I want to learn variety of subjects and obtain as much information and wisdom from my peers, faculty, and much more in order to better myself to become an individual who will become a great asset to not just the community but the world. In next 3 years, I see myself very much involved in not just my education but school and community as well. After all, having knowledge and skills means nothing until you utilize them to maximize the benefit for not only yourself but also the community that surrounds you.

To me, service is act of love.  By serving others you are not only making the world a better place to live but also building up character as an individual that knows how to give back. I say this because as Baruch Scholar of Honors program at Baruch I am being served great deal of service right now. I was always in a position of a “servant-leader”. Servant leader is basically a leader who serves by leading whether in a community or an organization and throughout my life I was such in my church, my school, and in my community. By helping to organize service events and participating in them, I served others with all I can and thus, I learned at an early age value of sharing and power of serving others. Now, I’m on the receiving end and it feels good to be the recipient of many benefits and service provided to Baruch scholars.

As Baruch Scholar I believe my role is to obtain high academic level to become a great leader of tomorrow that will change the world and serve in anyway possible to give back the blessings I have been blessed with. Honors program promotes culture of service, as school is investing to students by serving them, students should also invest in its community by serving. Honors program doesn’t just teach us to be a scholar but a well-developed individual. Thus, we are motivated to give back and serve the community. This will not only strengthen us as scholars but the community as whole.

I was a whole different individual. I wasn’t a college attending, studying honor student, but a rebellious average teenager. I never liked being graded and felt restricted by school from living my life. I did not like the fact that I was still a student and had to live like a student. I believed that without going to school you could still succeed as long as you are enjoying what you are doing.  I wanted to live my life like a rock star, carefree, just doing what I love doing. I was sleeping, I was dreaming, and I was foolish. I woke up from this dream when my Latin teacher called my parents regarding my absences in his class. I was going to get it. My mom picked me up right after she got that phone call and took me to my dad’s work place. My dad also got in the car parked on the sideway and it all began. My parents began to yell at me, “what were you thinking? How can you do this? Are you insane?” I didn’t care; I was just scared that they would kick me out. But the real wake up call came when my parents began to tell me about their work life, how much they had to put up with in order to just simply put food on the table and clothing on me. They could’ve stayed in Korea where they had much better jobs and status but by moving to America for my better future they gave up on their status and job for lower ones. My mother began to cry, I always hated seeing my mother cry and I began to hate myself for causing her to cry. Then my dad looked at me and said, “ Men with education can work in a nice, cool place during hot summer, and warm place during cold winter, but foolish men who didn’t pursue education work in a hot, uncomfortable place in summer and cold place during winter, suffering all year around. I don’t want you to become that foolish man because I am that man and I don’t want you to live my life.” This woke me up. As much as I respect my dad for all his hard work in his job I wanted a better job, I wanted to live a life of smart men who pursued education. I wanted to pursue higher education to make my parents proud and make their suffering worthwhile. Ever since that day, I studied harder than ever and desired success more than anything. Now I believe that education is the way to success and through hard work I will be able to earn success. My expectation as college student is through all my classes and activities in which college has to offer to make myself into not just a great successful man but also a well-rounded man. My hopes for first semester is to really make an impact and make that strong, steady corner stone in which I will build my college life and career upon.