Section BPR2D

This blog is long over due! Sorry for the delay Guys.

 Half the time of the workshop, was spent near the escalator on the 5th floor. It was heavily over crowded and people were shoving and pushing. When Fanta, Lulu and I were finally placed into a room, the head director came in and excused herself for the over crowding. She said that they were only expecting 200 while they ended up having 1000 students. Luckily, we came earlier enough.

During the brief presentation, I learned alot about what I will have to do in order to ensure that I am on the right path to graduate in 4 years. In high school, I didn’t get to pick and choose what classes I wanted to take, everything was picked ut for me by my guidence counselor. I realized that I have a lot of responsibilities as far as registering for my classes, and picking the right courses for my major. At first, I began to panic because I do not really know what classes I have to take in order to declare Finance as my major. After the work shop, i had a brief conversation with the Academic advisor and she assured me that there are many advisors there to help us out through this process.

I also learned about taking extra courses during the semester. At first I wanted to take as much classes as I could because I wanted to graduate in 3 years instead of 4. The advisor explained that as first year freshmens’ we’re not allowed to take no more than 16 credits but after first semester, you can take an extra course. An extra course is not recommended for freshmens because over working yourself can result in a lower GPA, something we should avoid having in general.

Overall, I found this workshop to be helpful for my academic success.

Last thursday, September 17, I attended the Freshman Reception offered by the Center for Academic Advisement. As freshmen we were all invited to this event which aim was to introduce us to this service that is available to us in our schoo, and wich we are welcome to use.

At first the whole event was confusing because the hallway was crowded and we did not quite know where to go. After about 20 minutes of being stuck in that crowd, we were finally directed to a lecture hall. The situation was that the organizers were expecting no more than 200 student, but they ended up receiving over 14,000 of us, which they were certainly not prepared for.

After being informed of the situation and receiving apologies, we then heard a presentation from one of the advisers. I was able to gather a lot of information that I need. I learnt about the number of classed one could take during the summer and winter sessions for example. The reception was useful to me because I realized I would need the Center of  Student Advisement to map out my cycle at Baruch, which lenght I am trying to minimize the best I can.

Last Thursday, after attending the Freshmen Reception, I went to the Library Workshop that was a lot less chaotic than the first one. Taking place by the help desk on the second floor of the Newman Library building, this workshop had only 10 to 15 attendants. The overall purpose of the meeting was to show us how we could use our library from anywhere via the online version of it.

I found this workshop very helpful because I learned about different features that I am sure would be essential to me . I was very surprised but also exited by the fact that we could renew our books online and we could borrow from any other CUNY Library via internet, and the book will be sent to our main library here at Baruch. After the workshop I was very satisfied by what I had learned and found the overall experience worth it.

Today I attended a workshop for managing relationships. This workshop was more than I expected as we got to meet new people and discuss certain issues we all have in common. At first we discussed family relationships and how it can sometimes affect our school life. Many students live in dorms and are far away from their family so staying in contact can sometimes be a problem. Not only that, but schoolwork, clubs and teams get in the way of ever seeing your family. Many students shared that being on a team keeps them at school and by the time they come home, it’s time for bed. So communication with your family is sometimes difficult.

Apart from managing family relationships, we also discussed maintaining friendships. While discussing this, the mentor asked us if any of us came to Baruch not knowing anybody. A great number of students raised their hands, including myself. I did not know anybody in this school but for the past time I’ve been here, I met a lot of new people. We did an activity where we had to walk around and meet 5 new people.  During this time, I met a lot of interesting people that I’ve never spoken to before. This was a great activity to do because it opened up many boundaries.

After discussing friendships and doing this activity, we began to discuss about romantic and intimate relationships and how it can affect our time at school. If someone was in a relationship in high school and is still with that person, things will be different now because you dont see that person everyday as you did in high school. This change affects both people and it can be stressful to make time for each other, especially if one is in another state or even in another school. We discussed that every relationship should indicate progress  in relational maturity. That way, it won’t affect our school life. It is important not to stress out over a girlfriend or boyfriend because school should always come first. And in case you are stressing out, the mentor told us that there is a free counceling center next to the library. It’s for free for the time we are at this college and most students should take advantage of it. It’s a great way to let someone aid you when you are feeling helpless or stressed.

Overall this workshop was very helpful. I met new people, learned new things, and got great advice to make my college life even better.

I’ve been a blood donor since I was sixteen. The “save a life” quote always caught my attention. Therefore when I saw the poster for the blood drive I automatically signed up. The only thing that I didn’t like about yesterday, was the fact that the nurse couldn’t find my vein on my left arm and had to poke me again on my right arm. I now have a bruise on my left arm but it happens. I’m just glad i “saved a life”.

On September 22nd, 2009, I attended a workshop titled “Changing America : Judge Sonia Sotomayor”. When I came to the room, it was already fulled. Some people who came late even had to stand up or sit on the floor during the whole workshop.

One of the speakers described mainly about the background of Sotomayor as a pioneer in her college and job life. She went to Princeton in 1962 as the first generation of women who went to obtain undergraduate degree. Recently, she also became the first latin woman in the court. The other speaker focused on the fact that she was a Latino, the race that many times considered outsiders and at the disadvantaged position. She mentioned that after the civil war, the lives of African-American and Latino are not better compared than forty years ago. She also revealed the founding about the correlation of names and the chance to obtain jobs. She stated that employers tend to set aside applicants with names that sounds like African-American and Latino.  Overall, she concluded that racism towards certain group of people still exist in the United States.

After three speakers gave out their presentation, we are allowed to ask questions. Quite a few people asked questions to the speakers. The limitation of time caused the workshop organizer to limit the number of questions. The workshop, however, still ended more than 30 minutes late.

Workshop #3 ~Community Global awareness

I sign up for the blood drive early because I used to see there fliers and also because there were their desk in front of Student life. I wanted to donate my blood since I believe it will help people who are so much in need of blood. Today in the morning I got their email reminding me my appointment to donate blood, so I was aware of it even before I came to school that the workshop is today. The blood drive was located in the Multipurpose room, and I went there with my friends who were all got scared and leave me alone. I hold my breath and accepted to fill all the form for donating blood. I had to wait online to submit my application and so the nurse took it and see if i am qualified to donate. Unfortunately, I wasn’t eligible since I had a tatoo for the last 12month. She told me my healthy is good, but if I wish to donate, I have to wait until this December. So yes, I left the multipurpose room happy but also feeling guilt for not being eligible to donate and help serve people’s life.

Freshman Open House was an extremely unorganized event. The academic advisors tried to squeeze all of the freshmen into their office which really did not get to work out well because it was so crowded. They separated us into different groups based on a first-come basis and the groups were uneven in size. It was difficult to hear my advisor because it was so noisy and there were many freshmen just standing around and not part of any group.

I don’t think that the advisement session was very successful because my advisor didn’t explain the information thoroughly enough and the session was not very interactive. She briefly spoke about academic advisement and how they are there to help guide us towards achieving our academic goals at college. In addition, my advisor quickly explained how we are required to select a tier 3 minor, which includes selecting 3 courses of study outside of our majors. I think I learned more about everything from the folder that was distributed but I still had questions regarding our selection of a minor which I did not have answered. I think that in the future, the event should be held in a larger space and the groups should be organized better. I feel that the advisors should explain the information in more detail so that it would be easier to understand what was going on and that they should take more time to answering questions.

The library workshop was the second workshop I attended 2 Thursdays ago. I like to study in the library because it is nice and quiet .After this workshop,I found myself like the library even more . The staff taught us how search a book by useing Baruch library website. I learned that if  we broow books from other campus,we can just return the books at the circulation desk. We can find subject guides from the library website,which help us a lot when we need help for mid-terms and finals.We can also chat or E-mail  the librarian within U.S.

Two Thursdays ago,I went to the Freshmen Reception with my friends. It was so crowed.There were more people attended than I thought.We waited like half an hour on the Fifth Floor. Because of the huge anounts of freshmen,we were sent to a different room.
The staff from the student advisement department told us what we should do for the next four years.She told us when to select our minor and list we can select from.She also talked about the 3 degrees Baruch offers which are BA,BBA,and BS.I learned how to calculate my GPA.Although this workshop was not that long,I ‘ve learned a lot of useful things.