Global Awareness

This workshop was about racism in schools and was presented by professor Vaughn from Stony Brook university. this was a very interesting type of event to attend because Baruch is the most diverse school in the united states and from what I have seen everyone seems to get along really well. the speech about how racism exists in the world and in a modern setting was really interesting and made me think of my past experiences.

Before coming to Baruch I lived in a very sheltered environment where there was very little diversity. I am pretty sure that out of my entire high school that there was only one visibly Muslim person (I say visibly because she wore a hijab), and that was pretty much as diverse as it got. it was very homogeneous and a pretty small community. now after all of this time being isolated I have come to Baruch, and after realizing how many different cultures there were here it was almost shocking.

I find that I do not experience racism and since I am an accepting person do not participate in it. it was really shocking to hear some of the stories about extreme cases of racist behavior and how it effected people. I find this type of behavior unacceptable and really unreasonable. this was a good workshop because it raised awareness, and the first step to fixing a problem is to raise awareness.

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Stress & Anxiety Reduction

Tuesday, Nov. 3rd, 2009

1:00 PM- 2:00 PM

Multipurpose Room, NVC 1-107

This workshop was based on promoting helpful strategies to prevent stress and anxiety with college life and other personal issues. It was sponsored by The Baruch College Counseling Center, Freshman Seminar & Student Life. The presenters of this workshop were Ryan Androsiglio and Joshua King. They began this activity by passing around some Stress & Anxiety Related  handouts along with a bag of raisins. We were each supposed to take a raisin and hold onto it for a brief activity. Ryan told us to take small steps in observing the raisin’s taste. We touched it, we felt the texture, we smelled it, etc. Eventually, we were supposed to eat it. The point of this excercise was to discover how different it felt to eat this specific raisin after examining it. When we take the time to focus on something, we can experience things we never imagined we could. Ryan went on to discuss mindfulness and the idea of paying attention to things on purpose and enjoy them.

We then had an exercise where Ryan played a relaxation session from an ipod. We all sat quietly together and did some breathing and stretching exercises. I participated in it but after a while it got boring. Afterwards, Joshua did an activity with us called “Assertiveness Training”. We talked about the diff. ways in which we can assert ourselves in a positive way. He had this activity called “DEAR MAN” in which we wrote down our emotions and assert what is is we wanted. I did this on the handout we were given. After that, we were allowed to go.

Overall, this workshop kinda struck a nerve with me. I got kinda emotional over it afterwards, esp. because of the “DEAR MAN” assignment. I tend to bottle up my emotions a lot which makes me very angry for no reason sometimes. This really isn’t a healthy way to live but I try to deal with it myself somehow. Hanging out with friends or listening to music is a great way to just chill out sometimes, which I def. do a lot. I don’t really get stressed out with schoolwork. I mean we all complain about work but it’s mostly personal drama in my life that stresses me out.

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Gallery Tour – The Nature Of Landscape

The first impression for this gallery was a shocking. First of all, there were too many people and I had to wait a lot since the line was pretty long. I am not the type of guy who is really interested in arts so at the beginning, I did not understand why there were so many people.

After a while, I finally got to get in. Once I got in, I looked around about a little less than an hour since I was actually focused on the photographs. Even though I usually don’t like walking around watching drawings or pictures, this was a special experience for me. For some reason, I could not keep my eyes off of many pictures. The pictures were looking mysterious and very creative. I like creativity. It made me wonder or think about how this masterpiece came up or what this was based on. Some photographs did not even have the titles and I think the creators did it on purpose just so viewers can come up with their own answers or just so they can think deeply and carefully about the pictures.

Every person has a different perspective and I think one purpose of this gallery was to emphasize that point so that people become more respectful to each other.

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Stress & Anxiety Reduction

stress is a huge factor in most peoples lives and really can effect health if you let it. I am not the type of person who is very stressed or lets stress get to me but every so often I cant help it. attending this workshop really was good because even though I can usually manage my stress and calm myself down it is nice to learn new ways to accomplish this. and just to deal with stress. some things about this workshop were a little not really too great. the guys who were just being loud for instance, were really annoying and the whole raisin thing, i don’t even like raisins in the first place so that was not really effective.

the part i liked a lot was the whole stress reduction stretching and breathing portion. sometimes i feel very stiff or just tense with stress and it is always great learning new ways to just relax and stretch it out and make it all go away. this inspired me to start doing some stretching in the morning as part of my daily routine, and i have never felt better.

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Student Services Fair

One thing that seems to be a theme at these fairs is the disorganized and extremely overcrowded feeling you get. it seems that there is a lack of interest from like 90% of the students present and more of only caring about getting an easy freshman seminar workshop. The main hope of this kind of event is that if they pass out enough pamphlets that maybe someone will read one and learn something.

I thought it was really stupid to have the little hole punch card whose purpose was to enter you into a raffle and “make this count as a workshop” it took away a lot from the point of the event and shifted it for most of the students I saw to how fast can I get ten hole punches? instead of what types of student services are there? also the people at the booths were mostly uninformative and some of them didn’t even know about or work in the department they were representing. overall it seemed well intentioned but poorly carried out. most of the real information I received was in the form of pamphlets, and the only thing I learned was that we have a nurses office.

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The nature of landscape

            I am not interested in art. I felt tired of listening long lectures. Since it is just a gallery tour. I planed to visit it . I had to wait in the line for nearly half an hour. I thought to leave because i was too hungry. But however i entered it.
         To my amazement I started to enjoy the photos. The photos at the gallery were good. I really enjoyed even though i was not interested in art. All had some hidden meaning. For each viewer it showed some different meaning. Most of the photos were taken in Flights. Some presented sad moments and some the happy moments. Some photos for me described some history. A single photo is worth thousand words. The gallery tour proved it. The tour was informative and good

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internship and goal setting

It took place in the multipurpose room on October 22nd. There was presentation in the beginning. It was mainly about maintaining a good GPA. The information were not new. I felt as the reiteration of facts which I already knew.It also said about the resume writing. I felt resume writing to be useful.

The presenter also suggested some sites for internship. Some internship would give credits. She also said the necessity of goal setting. It also spoke about the importance of GPA for job seeking. It will be informative for person with minimum knowledge in internship

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Club Fair

The club fair was a great experience in some ways and a little bit frustrating in others. first off I couldn’t understand why we had to swipe our cards before entering, it created unreasonable congestion and slowed the entering process incredibly. also upon entering there was hardly enough room to breather much less move, it was so crowded that it was hard to see what the names of the clubs were and even harder to get  a lot of information about some of the clubs. However, as much as there were crazy crowds and other problems, I learned a lot of things about some of the clubs that I will be joining here at Baruch, I also met a lot of really cool people. the clubs that I decided that I would be joining are the american marketing association because my major is marketing, the archery club because its cool, the mac club for Photoshop lessons, and I signed up to write for the ticker.

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Internship and Goal Setting

It took place in the multi-purpose room in vertical newman campus. The internship coordinator seemed calm and passionate at the same time. She was very organized overall. She gave us out a booklet and explained about it with her powerpoint. Basically, it was about how companies choose trainees, give them interns, and get them jobs. First of all, they tend to look at school grades(gpa), extracurricular activities, and such.

It was very useful since the presentation was very informative and also persuasive to get me thinking that I should behave more actively in this school in order to get a good job for my future. I am not still sure what I am going to do in my future but this meeting actually gave me an idea for what to do. High GPA and being very active in any field  is not going to hurt me but will help me out to be in a good social position. Even though I am not sure what I will do in my future, I will still end up being a good social worker or contributor if I keep my gpa high and do what i’m supposed to do.

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Justice For Sale

We had a guest speaker Carl Stranstorm who spoke about whether justice in America was something citizens brought themselves with their own money or was given to them from the beginning. It was discussed with judicial system and the pros and cons. State legislatures select judges. it’s democratic tendency is the advantage and the disadvantage is judges actually have to campaign to gain popularity and stuff.

This has been argued over and over. Why do they have to spend that much money to campaign themselves to be selected? Last time, one candidate spent about 3 million dollars for a campaign.  Is it that necessary? Do the parties and the government have the right to use that much amount of money just to campaign? Many people don’t think that is a right behavior since the money comes from our pockets.

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