Feature Writing

“I received my electronic pay stub and I was missing 20 hours,” said Sarah Wasser.

“I was asked to work an event on October 10 and I was told I would be paid for the hours and those six hours were missing,” said Wasser.

“I was thinking they told me they were going to pay me for the event but they’re actually not going to,” said Wasser.

“I ended up emailing the accountant and he said he will look into it,” said Wasser.

“There are two types of Halloween,” says Mendieta. “There is Halloween for little kids, which is celebrated today, and there is Halloween for drunk people, which is celebrated on the weekend.”

“I don’t celebrate Halloween for religious reasons but, even if I could, I have work today,” says Barrios.

“I remember when I was in school, in Mexico, and there would be a huge offering,” says Barrios, extending her arms.

I asked Mark Garzon about his op-ed piece:

“I’m working on affordable housing and how de Blasio is creating homeless shelters within hotels-that’s obviously not working,” said Mark.

“I want to talk about how that’s wrong and they need to work on affordable housing.”

Garzon has written about the potential homeless shelter in Maspeth, Queens. He doesn’t believe housing the homeless in hotel rooms is a plausible solution and believes there are many problems within shelters.

“It costs more money to house the homeless in hotel rooms. The money they are using can be used for getting the homeless an apartment of their own,” he said.

“My dream job? On the assumption that I’d be successful, I’ve always wanted to be a professional basketball player,” Levy says in an interview at Baruch College. “My dad and I used to play in the backyard all the time, it was our thing.”

“I almost drowned in a frozen lake when I was nine years old, “Levy explained.

“Come on, aren’t you going to swim it too?” One of Levy’s cousins asked.

“So I did. I jumped in and tried to swim across,” Levy attests.

“I’m not exactly sure who came in to get me, but I’m here today,” says Levy.

“There went my dream,” Levy said. “So I have an interview with Barclays this week; fingers crossed.”

I asked, “So what’s your topic about?”

“My topic is about redefining stereotypes of Asian in the media entertainment industry.” He slowly gathers his words together.

“For example,” he says, “all Asians are good at math.”

He says firmly, “These need to be changed.”

“I don’t celebrate Halloween,” Harjap Kaur said. “I just don’t like it. You have to buy candy, and that is expensive.”

Angel Mendieta will be celebrating Halloween with his four-month old niece. “My little niece is dressing up as a miniature pumpkin. I don’t know if my sister will be dressing up, but I am definitely not going to dress up,” he said.

Marcello Oliveira said, “I was going to look into how athletes have an unfair bias in the judicial system.”

“If my dad hits my mom, and an athlete hits his wife, how come my dad would go to jail but the athlete won’t?” Oliveira asked.

“Just because they are your favorite athletes, that doesn’t mean they are good people,” Oliveira said. “It makes me sick.”

Oliveira exclaimed, “The system is out of control!”

“I came to Baruch because I got a scholarship. I originally wanted to do journalism,” she said. “I found graphic design classes while I was here and advertising through that.”

“I realized that I couldn’t write that much, to be honest. I think I like communicating visually better,” Moy said.

When asked about what she wanted to do after college, she said, “I want to be an art director at a creative agency.”

Switching majors

“I had so many problems last semester,” said Katherine Ward, an FIT transfer student, “due to holds from different departments.”

“My associate’s is in fashion design,” continued Ward. “I had to change my fashion major because it required too much homework. I became anemic.”

“I really wanted to go for creative writing,” said Ward, whose new major at Baruch College is journalism. “But my mother suggested to have a degree in something that has an actual job, like journalism.”

“Its equal parts boring and stressful,” Katherine said of her part-time job at Topshop on 5th Avenue. “I don’t think there’s a retail job out that that isn’t headache inducing.”

She works in the shoe department where “its more of a one-on-one kind of thing. You get to have conversations with people.”

“You always get those customers that ask you to tie their shoe for them, or zip up the boot for them,” she said wryly. “Its always a response that’s between ‘oh okay’, and ‘I’m not your slave person…'”