Section LC05

November 10, 2009 1Pm – 2Pm (NVC-4220)

Personal Enrichment

I came in a little late to the worshop, but by the time I came in, the speaker was talking about raisin and assosciated with psychologial terms. I am guessing the speaker preceded couple of exercises with the raisins. However, the focus of the “raisin exercise” was to help focus on one subject and prolonging the process of concentraiting on one matter for longer time.  Near the end of the workshop, the speaker turned on a relaxing music for us to try to meditate and reflect. The speaker also introduced us various reflecting/meditating techniques such as listening to certain reflecting music and trying to NOT-think about circumstantial events. They taught us DEARMAN, which I don’t get, but apparently, it is a calm way to ask and talk to our beloved ones.

It was a mediocre workshop, I would reccomend it to other. By the way, I could not really hear the speaker well.

This was one of the one workshops that actually would have helped me if I didn’t know most of the stuff already.

The speaker told us about how to dress which is obvious, business suit, nothing less. How to handshake, which isn’t exactly very difficult, and of course eye contact. She attempted to get everyone to join in on a type of group work where each person gets up and introduces one’s self to their neighbor and tell of their strengths. This did not work out so well because most people either didn’t care enough or just wanted to get the signature and get out. She spoke about a lot of obvious things, but she also told us about places to buy a cheap suit or cheap business attire which helped many. It was a workshop worth attending and was very well prepared.

October 22, 2009 (VC-1107, 12:30 PM – 2:30 PM)

Career Exploration

As almost all of the people that went to this worshop would agree, this workshop was by far the best and most practical workshop ever! Since Baruch is a business school and centers a lot of business opportunities and programs – I believe this was one great example of Baruch where staff tells students to always prepare for internships, jobs, and opportunities that are ahead of us all the time! The staff there told us to start preparing for internships – start making resumes, knowing how to do interview – and learn information about getting internships. I first  learned about the BIG 4 accounting in the United States and other marketing firms that are successful.They also gave us papers and packets about internships and different business opportunities for our futre. Basically, start early and get paid early!!! I also would like to land a job in the Big 4 someday.

It was a great workshop, and I would like to recommend this to anyone out there!

Attending this with everyone else in LC05, we all did the same thing during this entire conference. Eat, nap, wake up, and pretend we were engaged. The topic was rather drab and listening to the man, who had a heavy accent and was hard to understand, I wanted to leave immediately. Then there was a panel of guests from teachers to students who expressed their opinion of his talk about Baruch being diverse to the advantages of having a diverse society to even the problems diversity can cause. The only part that really intrigued me was the talk about how a student was denied a class because she lacked a proper accent in her English, speaking it with a heavy Chinese accent. This woke up me up from my daydream and began to make me think a bout how I would feel if I was that Chinese girl. What a terrible feeling! I left about half an hour before it was over and was thankful to get out because the panel began to argue amongst themselves which had me lost because I didn’t know much about what they were talking about.

Septbember 22, 2009 (1pm-2pm)

Sydney Mishkin Gallery on 22nd Street

Arts at Baruch

It was actually my first experience in any gallery tour. Apparently, there was a lot of students at the gallery. By the time I entered the gallery, the arts curator person was surrounded with a big group of students. I had to basically eavesdrop on what the lady was saying because I could not even see her face during the tour. However, I did get to see several interesting pieces such as a photogenic picture of a railroad track that runs through a mountain in Europe and a picture of valleys and rivers. In midst of long lines, crowed students, I did have great time reflecting on the arts and thinking about intentions and purposes by the artists. It was intellectually provocative and gave me peace. I definitely want to recommend the gallery to other students, and the Sydney Mishkin Gallery will be my reflecting mecca from now on.

The freshmen open house had the opposite effect that I was looking for. Instead of helping me familiarize myself and become more knowledgeable about the college process in confused and worried me about the time to come. They severely underestimated how many students would be drawn to this workshop by offering a iBook raffle. The raffle worked and about 4000 kids showed up in a small cramped room The advisers switched their agenda from answering questions to just signing the student handbooks and getting them out of there as son as possible. It was a useless experience.

This was the first workshop I had attended and believe you me, it was a failure of a school workshop. Intended for all freshmen, I repeat, ALL freshmen, who are craving for the signatures for their workshop, they tried to cram thousands of freshmen into a couple cubicles while attempting to sign them in Via Social Security Number. The line started at the room, and wrapped around the entire 5th floor. The 5th floor was flooded with students who were lost and confused and desperate for their signature. Luckily, I figured no one was paying attention so I sneaked around the line and slowly moved in front of people from the side and ended up signing in, only having to wait for 5 minutes, while others waited possibly as long as an hour or more. Once I got in, lines formed outside the cubicles and everyone knew for what, those signatures were being given out like pancakes at IHOP, one after the other, people didn’t even care if the students learned anything, signatures were just flying everywhere. Luckily I got mine after wedging myself between people, who smelled terribly by the way, and i also got whipped in the face by some girls ponytail, which wasn’t really pleasant. Overall, they need to improve this event for the future.

This workshop was about more than its name hinted at. Not only did we learn about how to reduce stress/anxiety through breathing techniques, but we also learned about conveying our needs to others through DEAR MAN, and additionally about being mindful. To learn more about being mindful, we thoroughly observed a simple raisin with all of our senses and found out that being mindful about life will make living more enjoyable. Next we learned about DEAR MAN (Describe what’s bothering you, Express how you feel, Assert yourself, Reinforce, stay Mindful, Appear confident, and Negotiate). Sometimes when it’s hard to ask someone for something, using this technique is helpful in convincing the other person to “see things your way” and not get them pissed off as easy. Lastly, we did an intensive breathing and muscle exercise that was supposed to relieve the physical tension of stress. Overall, the workshop was partly useful (DEAR MAN was the most helpful, and the breathing exercises probably won’t stick with anyone), but i wouldn’t call it one that truly helped. Perhaps if there was more focus on time management, it would have been a better workshop.

This was a straight forward workshop. You were given a hand out as soon as you walked in which had a copy of all the information clearly organized. The speaker was enthusiastic and obviously very knowledgeable about the topic. She gave a basic summary of the information on the handout plus tips: How to properly shake hands with someone, how to sit, not to wear perfume or cologne. She also pointed out a list of potential questions which are usually asked by the interviewer and had everyone in the room practice  with someone sitting next to them. Very helpful and accomplished its purpose of educating you about the interview process and how to have a successful interview.