The CUNY community- Nour Hachi

The community that I am apart of is the CUNY community. For a long time, I looked down at this community. While I was deciding what colleges to go to, I was avoiding city colleges. I felt like CUNY schools wouldn’t be able to give me the best quality of education. I got these feelings from people who told me about CUNY. Later, however, I ended choosing a CUNY school, Baruch. Going to a CUNY school now, I have a completely different view of CUNY schools. There are so many opportunities available, and I feel like I’m at a home with a big family. However, CUNY’s biggest issue is the amount of funding that it receives. They don’t get a lot of funding which hinders the resources and environment of students. For example, at Baruch, the 17 lex building has been under construction for a long time. The elevators constantly do not work, there are problems with the heater system and other issues. I walked into the building today and there was a sign that said that only bathrooms on floors 1-7 are working. When a student sees that a school is lacking basic resources, like working bathrooms, they look down upon the system. Also, it is very hard to find spots to do work. Besides the library, Baruch doesn’t have many student areas. This is because there are a lot of students which is a problem that CUNY has. Having minimum funding means that CUNY schools cannot accommodate all their students. I am currently a part of a committee in the Baruch undergraduate student government. I am already taking the initiative to solve this problem because it is one of USG’s projects. Specifically, we are preparing to go to Albany to advocate for CUNY to get more funding. There, we are hoping to appeal to legislatures and convince them to boost the funding for CUNY schools, especially Baruch. We are quick to complain about what the school is lacking, but we must start advocating and fighting for our school because it is our community and deserves attention.