What does it mean to serve your community?
As a Baruch Scholar, we are not only suppose to be students who receive good grades but the hardworking students that work toward those grades. Although some of us, like myself, may be use to being more school/grades oriented; this is the exact opposite of what a scholar should be. Rather than focusing on ourselves and things that doesn’t mean more than a grade to pass and get the credits as of now, we should think about what we can do that will benefit us in the long run.
Most Baruch Honors and Scholars students were probably chosen because they weren’t just a star student. It was because they were also individuals who excelled in sports, volunteering, etc. In this light, I think it is expected of us or more correctly, our obligation, to continue to show that side of us and more. It is important to be well-rounded and share with everyone the most we have to offer.
Since we have less worries than regular Baruch students, we should put the unused brainpower into other places. Honors has stressed the importance of helping and providing our services for others through non-profit organizations. We should be more aware of what we have, what others lack, and how we can help them with our abilities. By working with those in need, we would be able to learn to respect the opportunities that we have. We can choose to only fulfill our minimum requirements or hopefully realize the importance of our actions. From there we would build from them to develop skills and traits, such as leadership and many more.
Others may find it easy to automatically say “I hope to be a leader at Baruch and be in Student Government,” “I’m going to be a great peer mentor,” etc. For someone like me, personally, to say such things would make me seem unnatural and fake. I recognize that those are ideas that I should be thinking. I want to be able to provide for others and show I am a living and breathing human being that is capable of more than reading and studying. Right now the path toward those thoughts are still unclear. However, I think with the help of the responsibilities I have as a Scholar and the services I will do, they can assist me to develop the necessary traits in order full what a Baruch Scholar is expected to.
