Monthly Archives: April 2012

When I first came to the US I never imagined myself having the opportunity to be in an environment of so many different cultures. While going to my first ESL classes at Baruch CAPS, one of the first expressions I learned was that New York City was a “melting pot’! I started translating this to myself and realized what the meaning really was – a melting pot was a pot with so many different ingredients that mixed together make a great tasting “dish”. Poor me, I wasn’t sure if that was right but later on I realized that this was a great description of what our city was all about – a mixture of incredible people with different pasts, sufferings, loves, religions, families, sorrows and futures.

From my four- year experience in Baruch I met many students, with some I stayed in touch, with others our ways split but what unified us all was our similar values and  our motivation of successful future ahead of us.  As Collins and Porras mention in their article values hold the core “independent of the current environment, competitive requirements, or management fads.” Let me remind you  that we all live in the same city, the most amazing city in the world. No matter what values you bring in the “melting pot” sooner or later they change or at least some of them shift. The city changes you as one of my friends said to me and I came to the realization that it did. I believe that once we became part of the Baruch community all of us adapted to similar values.  Seeing the competitive students at Baruch made me more competitive. I was striving for excellence at all times. Honesty and integrity was another one strongly enforced throughout the college.  In addition, hard work and individual productivity but also team work and collaboration were supported by all of my professors.

                I went to university of Sofia in Bulgaria where I was raised but throughout my years of education I didn’t think I was encouraged to innovate or think outside of the box. Everything seemed to be true or false, or in other words “no short-essay questions”. My inspiration was immense when I saw the difference at Baruch College – encouraging creativity and innovation was a big part of daily classes. And that became one of my core values.

                All my Baruch friends are very competitive so it is not a surprise that most of us see ourselves 10-to-30 years from now as being CEO’s of super successful companies in the country. Or being the next Steve Jobs with revolutionary ideas and turning them into something that will change people’s lives forever. Baruch College’s students have BHAGs that make them hungrier for adventure and risks because of our passion and conviction. Not many of us has the resources that a student at MIT Sloan School of Business has but we have us and this is what we offer to the world and the  big companies – our great capabilities, convictions and values that we will carry throughout our lives.

From my experience most students’ core values are they value freedom, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. The article states core values are a set of tenets that require no external justification. Core values are intrinsic to each student, which means they are also personable to each of them. Almost all students that I have talked with value freedom of religion and freedom of the press. All other values seem to be a subset of these two core values. These directly correlate to the Walt Disney Company in which their core value is evoking people’s imagination. The founder thinks this should come from an inner belief system. Most students envision themselves graduating from college and obtaining their dream job in the workforce. Most also would like to have a family that they can support with their education. The consensus regarding a college education and raising a family is unanimous when it comes to most students I have encountered. I definitely see parallels with student values and what they envisioned for themselves in the future. For instance; freedom of religion, most student would like to find a place of worship with the families they will create after graduation. For freedom of the press most student want to preserve free speech so they can have the right to be vocal when it comes to elected officials. So yes, there is definitely consistency between what students’ value and what they envision for themselves.