Evan Neer

As Freshman Seminar comes to a close, it is time to reflect on this past semester at Baruch College. Overall, I had a great experience at Baruch. Everyone is very helpful and is always looking out for my best interests. In fact, when I was struggling academically this semester, my professors, academic adviser, and fellow students were there to quickly help me get back on my feet. It was moving to see how much everyone cares about each individual’s well-being. I would like to especially thank Mr. Medina, my academic adviser. He is an amazing resource in this college and it is great that he is always there when I need guidance or advice. In general, the faculty is awesome. Baruch College has truly amassed a group of the intellectual elite to instruct it’s students. I am always fascinated by the material in each of my classes, especially my business classes. Professor Gagliardi and Professor O’Malley are truly geniuses in their field. Their real life experiences in the business world really show through in their lessons. I always find that I leave their classrooms with some very useful real world knowledge. It definitely adds validity to what we are learning in class. Finally, I want to touch on the awesome friends I have made during my first semester here at Baruch. Everyone in my learning community has become very close in the past months. We have made some everlasting relationships that we will probably carry with us throughout the rest of our lives. We have learned to seek each other for advice and use our learning community as an intellectual springboard to reach great new academic heights.

As a Baruch Honors Scholar, I have been granted a wonderful academic opportunity here in New York. However, this great opportunity comes with great civic responsibility. Baruch College has invested money in the Honors College with the expectation that we scholars will in turn help our surrounding community with the same enthusiasm we do towards learning. Not only is this community service our responsibility, it is the right thing to do. We help improve the community, help the common man, and our experiences while serving the community will stay with us forever. These experiences will also teach us how good it feels to help others. It truly is our duty as a citizen of the world and as a Baruch Honors Scholar. In our freshman seminar classes, we have been grouped with other Honors Scholars to create a community service project to jump start our civic engagement. My group will be volunteering at a soup kitchen. We are especially lucky to be able to be up close and personal with those less fortunate than us, as we will be serving them their food. Baruch College has given all Honors Scholars a wonderful way to extend our knowledge beyond the classroom.

In addition, this wonderful opportunity comes with great academic responsibility. It is our responsibility to set the example of a model student on campus. It is expected of us to present this image so that we inspire academic achievement in all Baruch students. However, our responsibility does not end there. We also must be there for students who need academic advice. If Baruch College was an army where our professors were captains and the general student body were privates, we Honors Scholars would be its lieutenants.

Throughout one’s life, experiences shape and mold that person into his or her future self. These experiences are the primary ways a person acquires wisdom over his or her lifetime. Personally, a defining experience in my life was my struggle with my weight. At the end of my sophomore year i weighed 226 pounds. I will never forget the doctor’s visit I had that summer. In this visit, my doctor told me that with determination, and strict regulation, I would be able to get my weight under control. Then, he said, “Nothing worth having comes easily.” I will never forget that line, it has become an important belief of mine. I went home that day a different person. I discarded my sedentary lifestyle for a much more active one. I made sure to spend at least twenty minutes on a stationary bike in my basement. I stopped eating junk foods and replaced them with salads. Almost immediately, the pounds began to fall off. Over the next eight months, i went from 226 pounds to 161 pounds. I had lost 65 pounds. I couldn’t believe how right my doctor was. This lesson has stayed with me ever since. This experience has genuinely taught me that nothing worth having comes easily.

Looking forward as a student at Baruch College I hope to apply the same lesson to my schoolwork. No degree worth having comes easily. I want to stay motivated to achieve the best for myself. In the first semester, I hope to transition smoothly from suburban life in New Jersey, to the urban life in New York.