Section BUW1A

On Wenesday, I attended a workshop that taught us how to use the web for research. Although I knew most of the material that was shown to us, a few concepts were new to me.

The worshop was held in the Library. The instructor had a projector hooked up to her desktop and was showing us different ways we can use the web to research. She told us that using Online Web Directories were very helpful. I did not know about Web Directories until the workshop.

We also learned how to use Google Scholars to look for articles for our research. I was impressed by how easy Google Scholars actually was. The instructor told us that some of the articles on Google Scholars was not free, but if the Baruch database has it, a link shows up directing us to it.

One of the most important things that I learned from the workshop was to check who own the source. I learned that it is always better to use websites own by government agencies and alike for research as they are more accurate.

I attended a gallery tour at Mishkin on November 3rd, 2009 for Arts at Baruch Workshop. The workshop was about a contemporary Artist named Mercedes Matter. Unfortunately she died; however, her artworks are continuing her legacy. We have not only learned how to observe and perceive an art work; howver, we also learned the business perspetive of the art. The curator has told us that a lot of businessowners and entreprenuers have invested in artwork because the risk of the cost and value of art work is very favorable in the twentieth century. For example, the curator told us that the Chase bank and other banks also invested in these kinds of art works lately. Although Mercedes was not popular like Picasso or Van Gogh, she has contributed a lot to the study of art. Her artworks are very contemporary and not scaled to reality. She has put much more o artistic perspective on the object that she was drawing and painting. The gallery tour was great and I would go again if Baruch holds more art gallery tour similar to this.

I attended a workshop about how to manage stress and anxiety.  The speakers were very informative.   The first speaker made us go through a meditation section.  The meditation was a breathing exercise that lasted about 7 – 10 minutes and was very boring.  The second speaker explains how to use “DEAR MAN” to resolve conflicts and explained ways to relieve stress in certain muscles.  The best part of this workshop was when the speaker used “DEAR MAN” to compromise with the students in the workshop.  It was an interesting workshop and I found it helpful.

Today, November 3rd, I attended a workshop for stress and anxiety reduction. Although the speaker was very informative with the lecture, it was quite boring when we go to the meditation part. He played an excerpt from a meditation disk which has a monotone narrator. The aura in the room suddenly went dead in the room, but maybe it was part of the workshop as to meditate is to be calm. Other than that, we were provided with a list of ways to calm the muscles in the body which I found quite interesting and practiced it at home.

Today, I went to the Arts at Baruch workshop in the  Miskin building. I was amazed that this building even existed. When I first entered, I was amazed at the architecture of the building. The indoor walls were made out of marble and looked very elegant.

At the arts tour, we saw pieces of artwork by Mercedes Matter, an unknown artist, whom mainly focused on still life. I was intrigued that Mercedes focused much of her life on drawing the same genre of art, fruits on a table. I really enjoyed that her work was very abstract. She did not draw the still life of the fruits in an obvious manner, her artwork was very striking and it made you think. Throughout the tour, I was trying to point out to myself the different types of fruit that she had drawn. I was able to point out apples, pears, avocados and papayas.

It is very interesting that Mercedes Matter is an unknown artist. Her work are very interesting, and I feel that the art gallery at Miskin will make her more well known.

On October 22nd, the Starr Career Development Center (SCDC) had a workshop on internships and goal settings. A booklet was handed out to everyone who attended which included resume writing, dress attire, cover letters, interview tips and many more of the sort to prepare one for interships. This was a very informative workshop and it has helped me to improve my resume and introduced me to many firms that had interships for business majors.

On October 11th, I attended the Start! Heart Walk in Prospect Park. It was sponsered by the American Heart Association. The purpose of this walk was to help raise money for the research on heart problems. My family has a history of heart attacks and my grandmother has suffered 2 of them already. I hope that one day, scientists can rid the world of heart problems.

On Thursday October 29th i attended the Career Planning: Internship and Goal Setting Workshop. This workshop was very informative and more organized than previous workshops. The sign in process was also simple. It was held in the Multi-purpose room. We had a speaker give us a speech and guide us through a powerpoint about internships, how to improve our interviewing skills, and how to improve our personal “pitch”. They handed out a packet which had information about everything from internships to how to dress for an interview. The speaker was direct and to the point. This was a good workshop, even though i was anxious to leave.

I went to the arts workshop on 11/3 which was in a small art gallery in a different building. There was a small group of people in the gallery which was a nice change compared to the usual hundreds of people at previous workshops. We were given a small tour and speech on the paintings and the artists. It was pretty interesting learning the background and history about the painter and the paintings. I never knew Baruch had an art gallery, so this was a nice find. The tour was also short and to the point somewhat, which was helpful.

On Tuesday October 20th I attended the Using and Evaluating the Net for Research for my Academic Enrichment Workshop. Unfortunately there weren’t enough seats at the workshop so I was forced to stand. The workshop itself was very informative. The speaker did his best to speak as loud as possible without trying to disrupt the other people in the library. He spoke clearly and was easy to understand which made the workshop quite pleasant. Besides being well spoken, the crowd was patient, and refrained from being a nuisance.

The workshop covered how to check the validity of a website, using “and or or”, narrowing searches by context, and searching through sites by .gov. The workshop at the start was a little slow because he covered the basics of searching which I already knew. However, as the workshop continued he started getting in more depth on how to fine tune your search. The most important thing I probably learned from the workshop was the use of quotations. Quotations help tell the search engine exactly the phrase you are looking for in a specific order.

As the workshop came to an end we have to rate the workshop which I thought was well informative, followed by an organized book signing. Overall the workshop was a positive experience for me. I would recommend it to people who are interested in learning how to optimize their searches, however it can be quite dull if you already know everything the speaker is talking about.