Section BPR2D

On November 19th, I attended the Job Fair Prep workshop during club hours to fulfill my Career Exploration requirement. The workshop was held in the multi-purpose room of the vertical campus and was intended to help us become more qualified candidates for the Job Fair which was held the next day. Two executives from Verizon Wireless had come to speak and give us insight tips on what employers look for when recruiting new prospects. They brought with them an effective powerpoint presentation which provided us with a bulleted list of things to work on. The thesis of their presentation was to help us effectively “brand” ourselves, or simply better market ourselves to possible employers. I found good ways to help myself stand out over other applicants. This workshop was a really educating experience and I hope to attend similar seminars in the future. It met my standards and went far beyond because it taught me a lot about the recruitment process. I recommended it to all my friends because it was truly a worthwhile experience. What really surprised me about the presentation was the sheer competition involved in acquiring a new job. It helped make me aware of what you need to really be effective in the recruitment process.

I went to the club fair as my student life workshop. There were hundred clubs in that fare. There were clubs for students who came form certain places, such as Hong Kong club, Japanese Club, and Tai Wang club. Also, there were some religious clubs and sport clubs. Some clubs are very attractive to me, and I actually signed up for BNB (Bowling and Billiard) club. However, there is only one club activity since the day I sign up. And unfortunately, I was too busy at that day and I didn’t join that activity.

I feel that both and clubs and club fare are helpful to Baruch students. We can know what clubs are available for us in the club fare. And club activities can help students relax and know new friends who have similar background or interest with them.

The Mishkin Gallery is a collection of artworks that belong to one artist. All the artworks are painting. Those are abstract. The artist’s name is Mercedes Matter. The objects in most of her artworks are a table and some fruits. She drew the same thing in different style in her different age. The picture he drew seems more and more abstract and harder to be understood as her age increased. I don’t like art too much. The workshop was kind of boring to me. However the lady who explained the artworks to us was nice and tried not to let us feel bored.

The name of my Career Exploration workshop is Basic Interview Skills. In that workshop, the instructor told us some basic skills of interview, such as no cologne, serious suit, dark color tie and long socks with white or dark color. The instructor taught us how to write resume and thank you letter which I didn’t know I need to write to the interviewer after an interview. There were many other details that most of us never pay attention to them before the workshop.

The workshop was helpful, since all of us will be interviewed and write both resume and thank you letter after we graduate or even before we graduate. I feel like that this is one of the more helpful workshops in Baruch. If there were any section 2 or 3, I definitely would go.

On November 17th, I headed to the Arts at Baruch Mishkin Gallery during club hours too attend the Gallery Tour: Mercedes Matter: A Retrospective (close to 1:30, after i got done with the speech review session with Sue). This Arts at Baruch workshop aimed to display Baruch College’s vast art display to freshmen students. It started with us taking off our bags and hanging them up, signing in, and gathering around the lady who would be conducting the tour. We all became quite still and silent as we gazed upon the magnificent pieces of art in front of us. I had never seen such wonderful paintings before. I quickly became awe stricken when i learned about the significance of these pieces of art. The paintings, with their radiant streaks of color all coming together to form a marvelous picture, were made by a girl, Mercedes who was younger than we were. As she grew up, her paintings became better and more realistic. This tour inspired me to produce paintings of my own and I now have a new found appreciation for art. Thanks to this workshop, I admire painters and their works. I think everyone should go to this workshop because it is truly a marvelous experience and I will definitely recommend it to my fellow students. This workshop met my expectation and went far beyond them I went in expecting to see boring paintings, I came out with a whole new perspective on art. The artist surprised me the most, I did not expect someone of such a young age to produce such incredible works of art. I hope every freshman attending Baruch College attends this workshop for it was a life changing experience.

On November 17th, I went to see Sue during club hours for feedback on the speech I delivered in class during Freshman Seminar. This session counted as a personal enrichment workshop. The goals of this session were to make me aware of the mistakes I had made while giving my speech. I feel that after this workshop, I have learned a lot about public speaking. Sue is a great teacher and helped me see the error of my ways. I learned how to fix my posture while speaking, effectively make eye contact with the audience, as well as engage the audience by using examples that they can easily relate to. This workshop helped me learn skills which I feel are valuable in the real world and will help me when I am going for an interview, making a presentation, or speaking to the public. This workshop definitely met my expectations and more. I walked into it thinking it would help me speak more effectively, but I came out with much more. I now feel knowledgeable when it comes to public speaking thanks to my experience in freshman seminar, as well as the necessary  criticism I received from Sue. The best part of this workshop was the fact that Sue not only told us what our mistakes were, but she also helped us improve upon them. I would definitely recommend this workshop to my fellow peers and hope other freshman seminar classes participated in them. This workshop was truly a memorable and extremely helpful experience.

On September 29, 2009 I attended Resume Writing workshop that was held by STARR. At the very beginning, the instructor collected all of our Baruch ID. I assume by doing that, she activated our account at STARR. Before, the computer at STARR Office would not read my Baruch ID card. After the workshop, the computer would read my card and I also began to receive emails from STARR. The workshop covered the basic technique and model of cover letter and resume writing. In addition, she gave us a link to a website that describes many different jobs. This website will help us to highlight our resume based on the jobs we are applying for. I also learned about thank you letter. In my country, I have learned about cover letter and resume in high school, but I have never heard about the thank-you letter as a polite and important steps towards securing our spots in the process applying for a job. The instructor was pretty interactive and willing to answer our questions. I would suggest this workshop to other students because it is a mandatory before we can use the STARR service for resume help.

On Thursday November 12th, I attended the workshop: Power of Mentorship hosted by the NABA. The event to took place in a small room of the Baruch VC, and it gathered a about 30 to 50 students including NABA members and non members like me. The hosts explained how having mentors was important because they could help and guide you in your college experience.

The workshop was very interesting because it made me discover many other ways in which my mentor could help me. This event even made me think about being myself a mentor for other students  in the next years. Finally the workshop was also a good place to network and meet new other students, sophomores, juniors and seniors. I got some good advice from some of those older students and I enjoyed that.

After the speech assignment that we had for our Freshman Seminar class, we had the opportunity to view the video of our performance. That review session was a one to one session of about five to ten minutes with our instructor. First we looked at the score that I earned on this assignment, then we  watched the video  while my instructor was  pointing out and  explaining to me what I did good and what could be improved.

I really liked this review session, first because it was a one to one session, which is  easier for us and more effective. Also, review my presentation and talking about it like we did helped me understand my mistakes, and it gave me an idea of what to work on in order to get better in giving speeches, which i know I will have to do a lot throughout my college years and beyond.

On November 3, I went to another workshop, entitled “Gallery Tour: Mercedes Matter: A Retrospective.” At first, I was a bit confused about what is going to be exhibited according to the title, but after waiting on the line for about half an hour, I found out that this exhibition is about abstract art as soon as I entered the door. I personally like art a lot and yes I love abstract art because I find that realistic paintings somewhat didn’t convey the ideas from modern society sufficiently. This exhibition features most of Mercedes Matter’s paintings, beginging from the art works she had done when she was young till the ones she painted at her old age. She was certainly an expert on drawing still life, and from the paintings on the gallery tour, I found out that most of her paintings are about tables, with fruits and other decorations above. What I learned from this workshop is that when we are looking at abstract art, we should take a few step back, untill we can see the forest but not only a tree. As a result, paintings seem absurd would then become reasonable, and I, like many others who were looking at the paintings, could see the big table with vague lines and forms, distinguished between other objects dued to by different colors.  I really like this gallery tour a lot, and I would recommend everyone, not only the ones who love art, but also those who seek relaxation, to take a look at abstract art and to understand  meaning embedded inside each piece of art work.