Freshman Seminar Fall 17' LC07

On September 17, I decided to check out some clubs. One of the club I decided to check out was MBA, which stands for Muslim Business Associates, previously in my high school I would sometimes visit the MSA, which stands for Muslim Student Associates. I guess I wanted to check out something I was already familiar with from high school.  I went to that meeting with my friend Ilmira. The meeting that took place on September 17^th  was an introductory meeting. We gathered in a room and first introduced one another. The leaders of the clubs were very energetic and nice as well as funny. They asked us what we wanted from the club, even though this club has the word Business in its name it’s more focused toward spirituality. They promised us that there would be more things on interviews and internship as the club moves on. They asked some of the club members what we would like to see in this club and how the club can be helpful to us.  Later on, I went to another meeting on September 26 with my good friend Grace. The second meeting was much more discussion based. There was a religious teacher who is a student at Lehman College came to talk with us about religious aspects. He was from Ghana. This meeting was more spiritually orientated rather than the business aspect. My friend had a bit trouble understanding some of the things the person was talking about and I tried to explain somethings to her. Overall, the club seems nice so far and I might go to MBA time to time.

On Tuesday September 26 Mir and I went to the MSA Club. MSA stands for Muslim Student Association.  Mir told me about this club and how she has a great time the last time that she went, so I decided to go with her to this meeting. This club was a new experience for me because I was going to be learning about a different religion. Getting to the club room was a bit hassle because we didn’t know where the room was. We went to two different floors until we found the room. When we got to the floor that the club was in we walked two full circle before we found the right club room after asking someone. When we walked in it was very quiet. Mir and I decided to sit in the back of the room. We were told that the guest speaker was running late so we had to wait a while. The speaker finally showed up. He was from Ghana. The speaker spoke to us the whole time. Everyone was interested in what he was saying. I was just sitting there really confused since this was all new to me. Mir would sometimes explain to me what he was taking about so I can understand. After a while it got boring because I didn’t really understand what was going on. The best part of coming to club was that there was free food. What I noticed was that they served food where they girl would serve the girl and guy would serve the guys. They severed use Chinese food and it was really good. After the club ended I asked Mir and she told me it was because of her religion. This was a good experience to try something new but I don’t think I would go back to MSA because I was confused the whole time.

On September 14, I attended my first club meeting at Baruch. It was Korean Students Association (KSA). When I entered the room, it was filled with people I have never met. Although I never met them, being the same race made me feel connected and comfortable. At first we were divided into groups based on the area we lived in, while eating subways and getting to know each other. Then we played a form of bingo that required us to find people who matched a certain statement. The winner that filled up two rows got gift cards. I thought this game was very helpful in learning other people’s names and fun facts about them in a short period of time. Then they gave a brief presentation on what the club is about and what they do. I enjoyed my first club meeting because I’ve met many people and the club members were very friendly and interactive. I plan to continue to attend their meetings and participate in events that the club holds in the future.

Last month, I attended the first general interest meeting of the Accounting Society Club. Before I went to the Accounting Club, I didn’t know anything about it. But my friend told me that maybe we could have a look and enjoy food over there. When we first step in, the staff of the Accounting Society Club were very enthusiastic. They asked us to sign in and have some cookies and pizza. So that we had seats in the first row.

At the beginning of the meeting, we played some games to break the ice. So that we all relaxed afterward. And then, all the staff began to introduce themselves and their position in the Accounting Society. After that, the president of the club talked about some requirements of becoming an inducted member, such as attending two general interest meetings, participating in two volunteer events, and five corporate events. Later on, the vice president showed us some volunteer events they did last year.

I think the Accounting Society Club is good for students who want to be major in accounting, because they will organize some activities for students to talk with the professors. Also, there will be some events for students to get a chance to network with professionals from different firms. Finally, they will explain some requirements on how to be major in accounting at the end of these semester. I think it’s most important for the freshmen, because we need them to tell us what should we do. Overall, it was worth attending this meeting.

I joined our school’s club is that UCLA, the theme of that day was about the Mid-Autumn festival in China and they taught us some customers about the festival. The Mid-Autumn festival is a traditional festival of the east Asian cultural circle, like north Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Korea. But, it originates from ancient China. It is held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar and it is on the Gregorian calendar from September to early October. The Mid-Autumn festival is a time for reunion, people return to their families for meals and worship their ancestors. Watching the moon is also one of the traditional activities of the Mid-Autumn festival. There are some different foods in these countries and moon cakes are a kind of food symbolizing the Mid-Autumn festival in China.

In the activity, people taught us that how to make moon cakes. The moon cakes are round, and every moon cake has a word on it. It reflects people’s good wishes for family reunion and deeply misses their relatives and friends. The making of mooncakes are difficult, we need to make the filling and crust, then we use the crust to wrap the filling. Although, making the mooncakes are not easy, every student is amused, patient and interested. The UCLA club is interesting and teaches us some cultures about China.

The first club that i joined is called UCLA. I went there during my gap time and there is a lot of people there, because there are limited numbers of seats most of the people are standing in the back and on the sides. This meeting is really interesting, because it is near the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is a traditional Chinese holiday, we have a special activity.The Mid-Autumn Festival is a important day to the Chinese people and it’s held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar with full moon at night.The festival was a time to enjoy the successful reaping of rice and wheat with food offerings made in honor of the moon. People gather together and have a dinner,then they well eat moon cakes and watch the full moon at night which is a symbol of harmony and unity.
In the club, we have a traditional Chinese game for the Mid- Autumn Festival called Guess the riddles. They give us some clues and we have to guess the word. It is really funny, some of them are easy and some of it you really need time to think about it. A part from that activity, we also make lanterns together.
We make the lanterns by using the color papers then we cut lines on them last we staple it together. It is really simple but it is a notable part of celebrating the holiday. The lanterns with all those different colors really make people feel the Chinese culture, those activities let people feel involved in the Chinese tradition.

On September 11 of 2017, I visited the Metropolitan museum with my friends. Thank god the  museum was near Baruch. The museum itself is mesmerizing from outside to inside. I also had an assignment from another class to visit  Metropolitan museum, so I guess I killed two bird with one stone. As we enter the museum, everyone said it was free but they ask for donation. Me and my friends looked at each other like the lady in the desk was crazy for a good half of minute. I hope they put my money into good use. There were sculpture from 200bc to 1800ad. We were interested in the culture and custom of china, which dated back hundreds/even thousand of years ago. Then we visited the greek sculpture. It was very crowd compare to how no one was in the native indian section. We all had fun but it was time to get back to class sadly.

On October 3, I joined my first club and it is called Fem Code. This club is a way for Baruch students to be more exposed to the STEM background. Mostly the club would focus on giving more networks for students interested in the technology world. In addition it would bring more resources to learn the coding languages. When I first came to the club there were many females and only one male in the room. I believe there was a majority of females because of the name of the club. However they encourage all genders to join the club. When I came into the club I saw two of my friends from the orientation and it was amazing to see them there.

This meeting was the 1^st general meeting of the club so in the beginning, all the e-board members introduced themselves. Afterwards, they showed a presentation about the club and what the club is going to do. For example soon the club would host a hackathon in Baruch. This event is to bring all technology-interested people to solve a problem and make networks with companies. Another example is that the club would have sessions where they will teach the students how to code. I find this amazing and a great opportunity because I am not taking any computer science classes. In addition this would help me improve on my coding skills. After the presentation, we had a icebreaker where we would introduce ourselves. Then the e-board members introduce a topic and if that topic relates to you, you would come to the center. This went on for a 15 minutes.

When the icebreaker ended, we ate subway sandwiches and drank soda together. During that time, the e-board members encouraged us to ask questions on what we want to know. After the questions, we all gathered together and took a selfie.

On September 23th, I went to the American Museum of Natural History. I went to the museum that day to do my first paper for my Latin American History class. For this paper I had to pick a Pre-Columbian artifact from Latin America and talk and describe this object. Thanks to my student ID was able to enter the museum for 5 dollars. I was in the museum for 1 to 2 hours, writing my paper, then looking around and watching most of the exhibitions. I decided to write about this in my second blog because its important that us, students, get involved and go out to educational places like museums. Its also important that thanks to our ID in places like this we get discounts which is very cool because sometimes you just don’t have the money or don’t want to pay it to see what this educational places are all about.

I also find it interesting that our classes require us to go out there and explore new things. I think this is a great way for us to get out of ourcomfort zones and just step out of our house and look and view things and places that we normally don’t see. 

During September, I went to the met. I went to the met in order to complete this blog post as well as complete my Latin American Studies paper, which is on sculptures made during the Pre-Columbian Era. I spent around 2 hour or so in the met. Most of that time I spent in order to find the Pre-columbian art section. During my search for pre-columbian art, I went to the American section, since, Latin America is part of the Americas, i assumed that they should be their but to my surprise, it was not and what i would were actually american paintings. Then i had to go all the way back to the other section, and all the way in the back did i finally find the Pre-columbian art section. The masks aswell as sculptures gave me a creeped out feel, and i didnt really enjoy staying there, so i took my picture and left that section.

Then i decided to go to the other sections to check so of the other artworks out. Walking through the Egyptian section was really creepy for me since it was dark, and filled with coffins. The faces painted on the coffins had hugs eyes and a smile, thus under the lighting it was creepy.  Then i went to the other sections. All in all, the MET has alot of interesting stuff, but i am still shook by the dollar i paid to enter.

i am shook