An experience that has shaped who I am as a person is my parents’ divorce. Like all divorces, it was an unpleasant occurrence that has had a major impact on the way I grew up and developed into a mature person. Personally, I feel that it caused me to be more serious and responsible at a young age than most of my colleagues. For the most part, my mother had to play the role of two parents and I had to help her. Trying to be the “man” of the household, I had a screw driver on my desk for whenever I had to put together a new piece of furniture and a map in hand whenever I went on road trips with my mom. The divorce also made me stronger emotionally. No longer do I allow certain problems to break me apart and affect me.

My expectation as a college student is to become more independent of my mother and to be able to manage more things on my own. In order to succeed in this, I will have to learn how to manage my time well, so that I can balance school, work, friends, and family. I also hope to end the semester with a high GPA so that I will have greater chances of receiving an internship or a better job position. As the semester progresses, I would like to come closer to choosing a major or at least a direction in which I would want to go in. When I first decided to come to Baruch, I was set on international business or finance, but I am no longer as confident in that decision as I once was. I understand that most undergraduates are confused about their career goals, but I find it very unsettling and would prefer to know who I would like to be in a few years.