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.