Author Archives: DANIEL VALENCIA GONZALEZ

America Today by Thomas Hart Benton 1930-1931

Hello everyone. I hope to get along well with all of you this semester while we are in English 2850. My name is Daniel Valencia. I am in my second year at Baruch. The major that I have decided to pursue is Finance, and my minor is Chinese. I am Colombian but was born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens. In high school, I studied pre-med and learned that it wasn’t for me so I decided to try studying business in college.

Some of my passions and hobbies are cooking, traveling, spending time with my collection of pet reptiles, and going out with friends. As of right now, I have two part-time jobs while also being a full-time student here at Baruch. One of my jobs is being a bartender at an Event Venue called 583 Park. Over two years at this job, I slowly went from being a waiter to a bartender. My other job is as a Chef at a very high-class event venue called Forbes on Fifth, which is where the magazine Forbes hosts very small exclusive events for people like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and other important people. Even though I am in a business college, and decided to study finance, my real passion is cooking. Ever since I was 12 I had to learn how to cook because my mom had gotten a new job that had her clock in extremely early, so she didn’t have time to make me breakfast. Since I never liked cereal I had to learn how to cook by watching videos on YouTube, reading cookbooks, and a lot of trial and error. Over the years cooking has become such a big part of who I am that I am the only one who cooks at family events because they prefer my recipes more. My goal in life is to open a restaurant because the thing that makes me happy is seeing people enjoy eating good food. To this day I still don’t understand why I decided to study business instead of going to culinary school, but I know that I will reach my goal one day. I mean what other 19-year-old could say that he cooks gourmet food for some of the richest and most important people in the world? After graduating from Baruch I plan on traveling around the world for a few years so I can learn about different cultures’ food I so can incorporate it into my own style of cooking. I know that it will be extremely difficult but I know that with some perseverance I will be able to accomplish it.