Anastasia Medytska's Blog

In the whirlwind of the first few weeks of becoming accustomed to college life, I signed up for every club imaginable. If I saw something with a moderately interesting description, I signed up. If they gave out good candy, I signed up. If they talked me into signing up, I put my name on that contact list. However, it’s November now and after dabbling in these various clubs and attending awkward meetings, I finally found one where I feel welcome- USG. Even though I downgraded from ten clubs to one, it’s the only thing I have time for at the moment and I really enjoy going to the meetings. I love knowing what is going on in the school and having a hand in planning events. So I’ll stick with that for now. I’m also looking into another organization to join next semester that I think I’ll enjoy being involved with.

Although Baruch does provide us with a lot of resources, I wouldn’t really say that the community service project has caused me to use a majority of the resources provided. The research process and picking an organization was based on my individual knowledge and efforts. That isn’t to say that I haven’t made use of the variety of resources offered by Baruch in other aspects of my education.

My understanding of community service didn’t really change but I guess my understanding of the process did. It made me think of it as something more technical and organized. I used to think of community service as just walking into a soup kitchen and handing out food, but I found out that there is much more involved. There are appointments and forms and a whole bureaucratic system that one is required to go through. I’m not sure if I like this whole idea of community service being something so technical and controlled. I’ve always thought of it as something anyone can do anywhere at any time, but maybe I’m just thinking of random acts of kindness. Either way, I learned a lot about how the whole process of becoming involved with an organization works.

As Baruch Scholars, we are given a lot of opportunities that are usually not available to students and people in general- from free tuition, to laptops, to special attention and amazing professors. I think that because of all the benefits we receive we are expected to use what we learn to serve the greater community and to share our talents and knowledge with others. I think everyone should, in some way, give back. Whether it is offering tutoring in a subject we are particularly good at, even if it is just to our friends within the program who might be weak in the subject, or serving food in a local soup kitchen- we should find something we are passionate about and share that with others.

I also think that to fulfill our roles as Baruch Scholars more fully, we need to take advantage of all we are offered. It is important to not be ignorant, but rather work towards finding everything available to us, taking full advantage of it, and then sharing it with others. All the services and opportunities that are available to us shouldn’t just be ignored, but rather used to enrich our learning

The project, in a way, promotes and cultivates the spirit of service by giving us a base with which to start serving the community. It introduces us to the idea of becoming more involved and sharing our talents. It serves as the springboard for future endeavors in serving the community, both within and outside of Baruch.