Monthly Archives: November 2010

What is a successful college student?  I am already off on a bad start with a risk of probation from the honors program.  Does this mean I am an unsuccessful college student?  I believe college is more of a bonding period in life.  Try to create strong friendships with people around you.  At first, I believed I was unsuccessful and was a little depressed about it.  But my friend in the honors lounge told me, “Come on, how are you going to tell me that one semester in your life can mess up the rest of your life?”  Then, I realized he was right.  Without his moral support, I would’ve gone on a downward spiral.  I never asked for excessive help in my life.  But now I see myself talking to teachers about my bad grades and asking peers to review my essays.  I never would’ve sought out help because of an inferiority complex I have.  “Hurt people, hurt people.”  That is the truth in life.  If something bad happens to you, you will reflect that pain on others.  But, I’ve also learned that “Helped people, help people.”  With the opportunity I have to help others in this program, I can actually indirectly help many people while I directly help a few.  My group has uncovered a program known as the Starlight Childrens’ Foundation.  I can help children cope with pain, study and interact. Regardless of the opportunity or not, I could help someone simply by listening and understanding.  Thus, creating a bond.  That’s what makes a successful college student.

Why are we asked to help our community?  Is it because we want the satisfaction of being able to say we “helped our community”?  Or is it, in fact, something more.  People say there is no such term as a selfless good deed and there shouldn’t exist such a term.  I believe my role in the community is to help at least one person’s life become a bit brighter than it already is and to put a smile on someone’s face.  But, my role in this is more than just helping someone else.  In the process of making someone’s life brighter, I should make myself brighter as well.  I should receive infinite satisfaction from helping another.  My belief is that we, as Baruch Scholars, should help others to help ourselves.  This is related to the culture of service of the Honors Program because we are being introduced to this environment.  Many Baruch Scholars may not have been or ever be introduced to such an environment if it weren’t for the Honors Program.  Of course, there will be individuals that will do the community service just to say that they did the community service.  But, there will also be many individuals that obtain something far more precious that community service hours and that would be the satisfaction of helping another person.  If we are introduced to this type of environment now and make a habit of it for the rest of our college life, we will be tremendously more inclined to continue such acts of community service in the future.  The Honors Program is trying to promote a community that will help the community, a sort of Domino Effect spreading throughout the world.

Passion. It does have a place in the hierarchy of life.

I’m used to separating passion with things I must do. There’s  debt I must repay, and that is something I have to do. Everything else is just details. Things are rarely that simple. Even subconsciously we strive towards the things we fever for. It takes effort and a step beyond ourselves to realize that.

I won’t claim that the Community Service Project made a huge change in my persona, but it has dawned realization. Though the extent to which I utilized the expertise and staff is questionable, the knowledge that they were there was undoubtedly comforting. it’s a sort of a safety net that we’d all like to have. A safe button before the big bad boss.

With a hint of whimsy, I will claim the honors study lounge a support center that I’ve utilized.  The haven just beyond the intrepid staircase of the harrowing steps. Yes I’m making it as blunt as paper that I’ve  graciously tripped many many times. The twin tables that hold the commerce of knowledge. The glass opening to the story of the lone anemic tree and the fire escape ladder whose steps look safer than the intrepid staircase of the harrowing steps. These are the stipulations one must face when  utilizing the honors study lounge.

Though the stipulations seem daunting, the bounty is plentiful, Having a variety of beautiful minds in one room creates the cynosure of student life. I will take a moment to describe a personal pet peeve of mine. The saying, ” all great minds think alike.” It makes me implode. Majority does not imply perfection. Yet we ask ourselves where peer pressure begins.  Back to the cynosure. It’s a source of knowledge, discovery, and dallying. All aspects an idealist champion can splendor.

As I’ve mentioned before, looking to the future is not a talent I’ve mastered. Too many possibilities. Too many expectations. As organized and structured as i can attempt to be, I will always and undoubtedly fail. Whether that’s a hinderance or an opportunity is another question. I find solace in the realm of the unknown. Naive for sure, but I see endless opportunity. I will put the knowledge of these resources in my survival pack.

I will also include a can of passion in that survival pack. It’ll serve as an epitaph to the one that came before the idealistic champion. Through my participation in the project, I’ve discovered that passion finds us consciously and subconsciously .Partnerships for Parks started out as a plea for manual labor, but it uprooted a distant memories. I will avoid personal sentiments and focus on the park where I thrived as a child. It was a terrain that held adventure and mystery. In going from where the sun ross to where it set meant going from the the top created from gravel to the watery bottom that nearly claimed an idealistic champion. Let’s quiet the memories and decipher what they mean. The park that alongside my parents raised me left a seed of appreciation in me. Parks are a neutral ground. Take Madison Square Park for instance. The benches are shared by the suits and the parents, the young and the old, the financially fit and the not so very. It’s a modern garden of eden where a deep breath and a tilt of the neck can do wonders. I lost the passion in the requirements for education, but am slowly embracing them once more.

A to fin, food for thought to indulge.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself

Leo Tolstoy

As a Baruch Scholar, I receive my college tuition fully paid as well as other perks such as study grants and first dibs on classes. I am very lucky to have been granted this opportunity, and thus feel an obligation to give back to my community. This obligation is reinforced in my Freshman Seminar course, as, unlike regular Baruch students, we are required to perform a certain amount of community service hours per year. Because my community has given to me, I feel it is perfectly apt that I give back to my community. I have many friends who go to schools both more and less prestigious than Baruch, and they struggle to pay their tuition. If not for my own fortune then at least for their hardship, I hope to help contribute to my community. For my community service project, my group has decided on helping the New York Blood Center. Blood is an invaluable resource, and I have a lot of respect for anyone who donates. I want to help promote this cause, and make the ones who contribute to it more comfortable.  Once my first semester is over, and I am better acclimated to college responsibilities, I wish to get more involved in my school’s activities and fundraisers.

I am a Baruch scholar and an international student; my parents work very hard to support me here and thus i have a great deal of responsibility to my family to prosper and be able to return the love, care and financial support they have always provided me. However, i think that it is also extremely essential that i highlight the role of Baruch college and the honors program here. By giving me the privilege of free tuition, they have not only taken a great load of my parent’s shoulders but in fact provided me with the opportunity to come to this country and make something of myself. I know the “American Dream” has become a cliche but for thousands of students, especially foreign ones like myself, it is still an enchanting prospect-the ultimate goal. My father immigrated from a small village to a big city in my home country and it is because of that very immigration that i am today able to walk the streets of New York. He came to a foreign city, independent of his family and support network and worked hard to prosper in his life. I am cast almost exactly in that role and hope that one day my children will be able to enjoy all the comforts and opportunities that so many Americans take for granted.

I got a little off topic there. Back to Baruch’s and the honor program’s role. In light of all the benefits and opportunities that they have provided me, i think that it is important for me to give something back to them and to the larger New York community as well. At this point in my life, i do not have a lot to give financially but i can certainly give my time and effort, if simply, to repay some of the debt that i owe to this institution for without their support i would have found it hard to even be here. In this upcoming project, i will do my best to serve and to help and you know what i want to do it. In my culture, if somebody teaches you a single word, you are indebted to them for the rest of your life and Baruch college is giving me an entire education.

As far as the culture that the Honor Program promotes as in community service, i think it is a great idea and that it should be a part of every college students duty. Everyone lives in a community, their are no bubbles so what effects my neighbors and the strangers that i walk by on the street is probably or already affecting me as well so helping build a better and more caring society is at the end of the day, a favor to myself.

Instead of doing my theater review for The Doll House, I am here writing a blog.  College is hard, I can’t lie about that.  I’m struggling alone and trying to keep up.  The worst part about college is finding your limit.  We were raised to believe we are unstoppable but that is a lie.  we go through 12 grades of education passing by without an effort, but now we are in college.  When you try so hard and still fails, it is like a slap to your face.  When you know you give it all and still fails, it is another slap to the face.  When you feel like a failure, how do you get out of it?  How do you escape from this lingering feeling that this is as far as you are going to get.  How do you escape from all of this?

Song of the moment- Animal-Neon Tree

Serving my community entails much more than simply putting in a few hours at the local food pantry or donating a few dollars or warm garments to a charity. Such actions are one-time actions at best and are not exactly sustainable over a long period of time. Rather, I prefer to volunteer at something more meaningful, where the time and effort that I put into the volunteer experience helps to produce lasting benefits for my community. For example, the organization I handpicked for my group, Solar One, works to “empower people of all ages with the vision, knowledge, and resources to attain a more environmentally sound and sustainable future. By giving people knowledge, something that they can retain and use to their advantage for the rest of their lives, I know that I have provided a lasting service to my community.

Baruch Scholars are given many perks like free school, a team of faculty advisors, a free computer, money for study abroad and school related expenses, and even the chance to apply for classes earlier than everyone else. The Baruch community invests so much money and effort into us, it is only right we give back.

As Baruch Scholars, we are the representatives for Baruch. Macaulay Scholars have their dual identities as both Baruch students and Macaulay students, but we are the students of Baruch alone. This way, we are the products of Baruch’s efforts and are the best representation for Baruch’s ideals. We must serve as role models to others, we must be good students, but since we get so much from the community, we must also contribute to the community.

Baruch pushes us to do this by encouraging community service. We must all perform 8 hours of community service in our Freshman year and 15 hours each year from our sophomore years on. We are allowed to pick things we feel connected to and are interested in to volunteer for. My group decided to work with the American Cancer Society because one of our members knows what its like to have a family member with cancer. I too know what its like. My aunt died of cancer when I was younger, and her family hasn’t been the same since.

By giving us all this chance for free school and all these perks, we are almost all promised a better life in the future. We also must help others in order to improve their lives, much like being a scholar improved ours.