Anthony Marsan's Baruch Blog

As Honors students at Baruch, the resources at our fingertips are immeasurable. Not only do we have the opportunity to be taught by the most esteemed and qualified faculty; we have the ability to collaborate with each other in our classes. We have all worked diligently to get to our position and the mere grouping of our learning community is a resource since all of us are going somewhere in life.

However, when it comes to the community service project, we were shown how to find an organization and left at that phase to coordinate an activity. The assignment made us incorporate databases from Baruch’s library, with that of our honors status to establish credibility and to work our way into a non-profit corporation. It was different in that nothing was set in stone and we were given complete autonomy in the matter. So long as we valued the cause, and weren’t compensated financially, the activity was credible. It was an experience which many of us have not experienced as a school assignment. In fact, I expect many of my future classes and assignments to rely on personal autonomy and decision making.

Since the beginning of the semester, I have also managed to informally join two clubs. The first which I slightly experimented with was the club, Baruch C.E.O’s which has since been renamed however it wasn’t fulfilling its end of the deal. I didn’t like the atmosphere and quickly met a friend who is also a contact for the Finance & Economics Society. Through him, I have managed to keep up with events and presentations even though I have spent most of my club hours on group presentations for various classes. I managed to form this informal link to the F&E Society and till the Spring semester starts, my informal relationship should suffice.

In short, I believe that all of the skills we are refining through the Community Service Project, student clubs, and even our classes hinge on communication and networking. That is quite possibly the main point of a college education since we are meeting and speaking to some of the people who we will be working with, or against, in the future decades.

After submitting my response letter to undergraduate admissions, I was a fully fledged Baruch Scholar. At the time however, I had no idea of what it would truly mean to participate in the Honors Program. I assumed that it was simply a title people used to spice up résumés and academic grade point averages would be my major, if not sole, objective at Baruch. A little more than half of a semester later, I have realized that I was wrong. The Baruch Honors Program hasn’t only given us laptops, free tuition, and innumerable other perks, it continues to provide assignments and course-loads that broaden our horizons. One of these assignments happens to be the community service project and although it doesn’t seem to ask much, it opens up much more.

To serve a community is to assume what is best for that community and to invest your time into getting those tasks accomplished. As a Baruch Scholar, it has been made clear that it is our duty to be active students and citizens. When we see that something must be done, we don’t moan but rather we act. It is through this action that we make names for ourselves, establish networks, and promote the name of our Honors Program. Our actions in turn reflect the college and through community action, we can slowly repay our school’s generosity by portraying it in the best light possible.

In the future, I expect nothing less from the Honors Program or from ourselves. If we have the ability and the drive to help our community, we also have the obligation. When, in high school we volunteered to enhance our college application, we did so with a certain degree of reluctance but eventually we all came around to the point where reluctance became enjoyable. In short, our community service is a small project which can and will go a long way. It gives us, the students, the opportunity to give back to the community as well as Baruch. We must continue to have this mindset and so long as we embody these values of service, hard-work, and diligence, the Honors Program will be heading in the right direction.

Growing up in a severely cultural Croatian apartment, placed in the middle of a small suburb in Westchester, I have certainly grown to value variety. Stemming from the cultural bridge I cross each day when I come home, this bi-national identity has served to give me an open mind in most any given situation. Certainly I also have my traditional moments; however I have always respected the idea of having an open mind since it only leads to new horizons. This value culminated in six consecutive summers spent in Croatia swimming, free diving, and spear-fishing. I can finally identify with the stories my parents had been telling me for years. I understand what it means to be from a Croatian archipelago in the turquoise Adriatic Sea and I understand why the nostalgia is so severe. In fact, it has been a motivating force since I focused on my academics mostly for the summer abroad. As an economics major I might say that it was an incentive which worked. This macbook is proof.

My value for variety might have also inclined me towards Baruch. The diversity was an obvious factor luring me towards the school since my circle of friends was jokingly known as the U.N for a while. As for expectations, I can only say that I hope to be challenged and exposed to opportunities in finance and economics. So far, my expectations are being fulfilled, and I feel that if I take each assignment at a time, I should be fine. For years I have worked diligently year round so that I can go to Croatia and take a break for a month or two. I have grown to see the States as a professional environment and so long as I approach Baruch with this mindset I feel confident. Along with our entire learning community, we have the intellect to be here, now it’s up to us to succeed.