Blog Posts from Baruch Scholars

We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It’s a death trap. 

-Anthony Hopkins 

I hate talking about myself. Now you know one thing about me. Deep, personal, reflection and contemplation are in my opinion, best done alone, in one’s head. Talking about that stuff is just weird. And if you write it down, make sure you burn it after committing said revelations to memory. So that being said, I think I’ll just keep this light-hearted.

A big part of who I am is Switchfoot, my favorite band. I know next to nothing about music, but they make me feel as if I do. Switchfoot is the sole reason for any musical literacy I possess. I will not die until I meet them in person; I simply refuse. Their lyrics are inspired, their sound always has a fresh edge, they’re funny people, aaanndd, yeah. They’re just awesome. Enough said.

As for what has shaped me into who I am today, I would have to sayyy, the number one contributor is diet and exercise.

I kid. I do no such things.

I guess my family and friends are the most influential people in my life. The people I love, and who love me in return, the people I admire, look up to, and aspire to be like in life are all found in that group. They have instilled in me a sense of identity and belonging, and have taught me the values and beliefs I hold today.

Now onto my expectations for college. They’re pretty high, and I must say that so far, thankfully, Baruch has met all of them. I must be one of those rare species of people who love the long commute . See that, is my pensive time, like in Harry Potter (another large influence on my life)! I expected the work load to be heavier, and I suspect that, starting next semester, it definitely will be. I am however concerned about getting into the classes I want for next semester; it sounds like it’s pretty much every man for himself when registering for classes. Like some kind of online free for all. *shudder*. And lastly, I hope I pass all my finals. That would likely be my number one concern.

Well, until next time I suppose. I really am not used to this blog thing at all. *sigh*

Hello my name is Albert Gindi. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. I went to Magen David high school. All of my friends through high school have been my friends my whole life. I am glad Baruch is giving me the chance to go out and make new friends. My hobbies is to play and watch sports. I am a big Mets, Knicks and Jets fan. I go to many sports games with my friends. I also love to play basketball and football. Every sunday, from the beginning of high school, me and nine over friends get together and play football at a local park. When the weather gets better we start to play basketball. Playing sports relieves me from stress and gets me energetic and competitive. Over the past summers I worked by my father and realized my passion for business. I worked by his wholesale company and and his retail stores. It made me realize the big world out there that has many opportunities. I decided that I would like to pursue a job in the business area. I am attending Baruch college to learn more about business and it will help me reach my goal. For my first semester I would like to get to know the college and get the hang of attending Baruch. I want to make new friends and embrace the journey ahead of me. I want to further decide what interests I would like for my majors. I want to make use out of my first semester and begin my college experience.

Journal ENTRIES

#1   Where Have You been and where are you going?

I come from a middle class family so I know that money is not easy to get. I have to learn the skills you need for the job that I are looking for, and hopefully I will find a vacant spot in a company’s employee position list. Having gotten to know the world through TV, stories, lectures, I learned to think for myself and not believe every word that the other person says.

I value the basic moral principles, and have courtesy towards my fellow man and respect authority. As for my beliefs, it is always right to be nice to other people. Or at the very least, don’t go around hurting others because it hurts you too at the end.

As a college student, I expect work and experience that will contribute to my growing up , becoming wiser and more intellectual. I also expect all the activities that I will get involved in to help make me prepared for a future career.

I hope to be able to get by in my first semester. In addition, making new friends in my FRO class and in my other classes would be very good. Having people to support my plans is probably very essential in life when everything is goal-oriented. Right now I’m just a little worried that something might go wrong, because it always happens. Whenever life is pushing you along, a bump in the road is there, waiting to get you.

Theres not much I can say about myself that’ll give you a perfect picture of who I am. I can, however, say enough to give you an impression of what kind of person I am and give you a glimpse of how my mind works. I was born in Brooklyn, of Pakistani heritage, and moved to Staten Island at 7 years of age. I attended Staten Island Tech High School, and now attend Baruch college, still commuting from Staten Island.

I may be very quiet and composed on the outside, but Im a mess on the inside. I like to think a lot. I like to observe my surroundings and just take it all in. I enjoy many different things that stimulate the brain, such as art and nature. There can be twenty different things going on in my head at the same time. Sometimes it gets very hectic inside there, but I enjoy just getting lost in my own thoughts. Besides from thinking and observing, I enjoy playing basketball, video games, and exploring new places.

For me, high school was a great experience. Attending a small school really helped me to grow as a person and learn a great deal about life. I made many great friends, and had great teachers to teach me not only about the subjects they taught, but also about the real world. Sometimes I just thought that my little high school was the only world. However, I have come to realize that there is a much larger world out there. There is still much to learn and much to explore.  Truthfully, the real world scares me a bit. I have come to realize that life can treat you in many different ways: sometimes harsh, sometimes easy. There can be no truer saying than the one that goes, “Life is what you make of it.” I am ready to work hard to make life a little less troubling.

This journey starts with Baruch college. I have a great oppurtunity here in New York to explore new places and gain an understanding of the real world. I am ready to meet new people and ready to jumpstart my career. I hope to learn many new ideas and hope to learn a thing or two from others. I know this journey won’t be easy. I will have to work hard in my classes and will have to stay focused. Hopefully, I will be able to do so. In part, I am worried of what my future holds. But, I am confident that I will be able to make the right decisions and do what is best for myself and for others around me.

Who am I? Where am I from? Where am I going?

Do any of us know who we really are? Haha. I’m George. I’m a 17 year old Filipino kid from New Rochelle. That’s in Westchester, just a little north of the Bronx. I went to private Catholic school for pretty much my entire left before coming to Baruch. My high school, Salesian High School, was all guys, some people think that’s weird, but honestly it made things a lot more comfortable. I cannot say enough about how much I loved high school. An all boys school makes you have to “esto vir”, which roughly translates to “man up”.  In high school, I’ve made some of my closest friends and had experiences I’ll never forget. I’ve participated in religious retreats where I met people from across the east coast, and I was even blessed enough to participate in an exchange program with a brother Salesian school in England.  Aside from these more extravagant events, I was really active in high school, particularly in music. I was the marching band president, the lead vocalist in the school’s music ministry group, and in the school’s drama club.  I even won a Metropolitan Theatre award in my senior year for my performance in the school play.  In the end, high school was some of the best four years of my life, solidified with a Silver Eagle Award at graduation, the highest form of award a Salesian school can offer at graduation. Mine was one of only two awarded to my class, the other being awarded one of my good friends.

This leads me to where I want to be going. I want Baruch to take me somewhere new. My years at Salesian took me so many places and brought me so many blessings, I can only imagine how much more college can offer.  I want to make new friends and explore new talents and experiences and just all around have a good time while, most importantly, moving forward. None of us may know where exactly we are going, but as long as you are trying to go somewhere positive, you’re not wasting your time.

Opinions

Perhaps being at the brink of losing everything close and dear to me woke me up. I always thought that the purpose to life was the pursuit of happiness and that happiness was attained through fulfilling my many needs and wants. The only thought in my head use to be “me” and only “me” but that changed when everything started slipping away. Striving to preserve everything the way it was could have possibly been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. The fright of once again losing it all altered me. I realized that there was another path, another road to happiness; it was a “kill three birds with one stone” method. If I dedicated myself to providing happiness to others I not only make other people’s lives simpler but my life more worthwhile and at the same time keep all of those who are close to me. My main concerns since then has been family and friends but family first since they have been the biggest factor of love and support.

My expectations as a college student is simple: to educate myself for future purposes. The main objective of a student in any school is to learn and hopefully make as much out of the experience as possible. My hopes for college is to learn and understand how to tackle the real world when college is over so my concern would then be that I would not grow enough to be able to survive in the world outside of college.

Well, my name is Elizabeth Rose Chimenti but everybody besides my family calls me Liz. The nickname actually started late as no one called me that until middle school and when that happened that’s when I started referring to myself as Liz too. Anyways as I am still only 17 years old there are only a few events that have helped shape who I am today. I guess my first major influential event was when I was 10 and I moved from one town on Long Island to another one unknown to me a half hour away. To the young me this was the end of the world as I’m sure it is to many young children who move. My new neighborhood was one completely different from my hometown as the cliques were already set and I was left out of all of them. I never really found myself through elementary and middle school it wasn’t until I reached high school that I began to appreciate what this move had brought me. My family although originally torn by the move was now stronger then ever with better bonds with my parents and brother. My father soon after the move was laid-off in the economic downturn and by high school we had pulled out of the hard times of just making ends meat. With a set family, Bellmore also gave me my best friend who lives just across the street. When I first moved in we exchanged a few words hear and there and a few hangouts among mutual friends but when high school started that changed. From the beginning of high school and continuing to today he is my boyfriend, but more importantly my best friend who encouraged me to embrace who I am. With the start of college that idea is the most important as we all are looking for lifetimes friends. College has fulfilled its rumor of being way better than high school in even the simplest form of air conditioning to the hope to learn more useful information. Also it’s fulfilled it’s job of being harder than high school thus my simple hopes this semester is to get the hang of things in order to continue my high school success over the next four years here.