Author Archives: Faizan Sohail

a) Tell us how your experience at Baruch College has lived up to your expectations? Not lived up to your expectation? Exceeded your expectation?

To be honest I had a vague idea of what college would be like from what my siblings told me and my experience at Baruch college has met my expectations. It is a whole lot of work, there is a lot of freedom and free rein given but in the end, grades all come down to exams. I enjoy the fact that I am given a lot of freedom to roam and walk around as I please. I knew how much work I was going to have when I saw I had 6 classes and I wasn’t dissapointed. It seems that my entire first semester is completing one assignment after another like a machine. I am definitely not taking this many classes next semester as I am often left sleep deprived and tired from all the work.

b) How well do you think your first semester at Baruch College went?

I think that my first semester went pretty well. I am averaging an A in all my classes with the exception of calculus which requires me to put in a lot of extra time and effort. I am pleased with how my semester went because I have worked long and hard to achieve the grades I currently have. I consider my first semester as a freshman a success. Still I remind myself that the semester is not yet over as I still have many finals so it is still too early to claim a victory. I hope to continue working hard to ace all my finals.

c) What would you do differently during your first semester if you could do it all over again?

I pretty much gave this semester 110% but I know there were times when I could have studied more or worked harder. Working to achieve beyond my best is my goal if I had to do this semester all over again. I would also study a lot more for calculus as it is my hardest class. I only started putting in genuine time and effort to studying after I got the first test back. Next time I would have put in extra time starting from the first day of class.

d) How have you changed since you started at Baruch?

Since starting at Baruch I have become a lot more responsible. I budget my time well to ensure that I don’t end up cramming at the last minute for an exam. I also am more money conscious considering all the money my dad shelled out on tuition and books so I am more responsible with my money and how I spend it. I cut out a lot of unnecessary spending and understand the value of money better. I still have no idea what I want to major in at all. This is normal according to a lot of people I’ve spoken to. I hope by the end of next year I’ll have a somewhat clearer idea of what I want to do with my life. So career wise I am still the same as I was in senior year of high school.

Monologue

Hi everyone, my name is Faizan Sohail. I am a freshman here at Baruch College. I don’t know what I am going to major in yet but I’ll figure it out eventually. The thing I treasure the most in life is my family. I love them all and I would not be the person I am if it were not for them. I identify myself by my family and the traditions I carry from Pakistan. The roles I take in my life include son, uncle, brother and student. My father is the most important person to me in my life. He has sacrificed a lot and done so much just so that I could make it to college and live the comfortable lifestyle that I do.

What I fear is losing friends. Back in my old high school I had made a lot of friendships with many decent people. Friendships take a long time to build and saying good-bye was one of the most painful things I had to do in my life. A lot of my friends went abroad to study and I will miss them deeply. We shared many good times. Spending time with my high school gang was what made me happy.

School is going fine. The biggest transition is time management. Managing a job and school is hard. I have a job to help me pay for tuition and books so it’s not just something I can drop at a moment’s notice. I tend to procrastinate a lot which isn’t good. Many of my professor’s give a lot of assignments and keeping track of each one is a biggest challenge. The thing I like most about Baruch is the freedom. There are lots of good restaurants and shops to browse on my spare time. Baruch is in the heart of Manhattan so there really is no end to the amount of places to visit.

I feel guilty whenever I see food wasted because I know a lot of people who don’t have enough food to feed themselves or their children. My motto is “work hard and you will succeed because nothing worth getting is easy to obtain”. I live by this because I can’t expect to do my parents proud by just being a bum. I have to work hard and only then can I hope to succeed and make them proud.

This is me at my brother's wedding. I see myself as someone who is loyal to his family and his parents over anything else in life. I am proud to be from Pakistan and to have such a great mother and father.

As a freshman at Baruch and a first time college student I believe that procrastination is the single most important thing that hinders me from completing my work on time. This is an especially bad habit that I am trying to break myself of. Whenever, I get an assignment I immediately look at the due date and count the time I have between the present and the due date. However, no matter how hard I try to plan in advance to work on something I almost always leave it to the night before. While that may have worked in high school where the work was comparatively far less difficult it will not cut it in college. The work is simply too much and too involving to leave it to the last minute. Leaving it to the last minute leaves me overwhelmed and frustrated. Most times before a paper is due, I am up late into the night writing, rereading and proofreading what I have written. I know that writing a paper beforehand, and giving myself more time to proofread it, always gives me a better essay.

I need to break myself of the mindset that the assignment is due later so I can push it out of my mind. The moment the work gets out of mind then I forget about it until I hear an announcement in class or I remember from reading old notes that something is due. College professors do not remind me when something is due or not due, so the responsibility lies completely on me. The transition is somewhat difficult because I am accustomed to high school where there are constant reminders as to when something is due. In fact many teachers often take the extra step of getting students emails to remind them when certain assignments are due. None of this happens in college, which gives me a certain amount of liberty and responsibility to make decisions as to how I manage my work load.

This whole procrastination issue I believe cannot be solved overnight. I am trying to balance my time between a job, school and my social life. This juggling act takes its toll on me but I need to understand that no matter what, school comes first before everything else. I am paying for these classes and if I fail them it is only going to hurt me. The professors don’t care about individual students. In a class where they have hundreds of students they cannot be bothered to learn everyone’s name. At the end of the day they are still making their money and my pass or fail means nothing to them. So I’ve learned to put school first before anything else.

In addition the school has provided planners which I do not make good use of. I believe that if I try to write everything down in the planner and utilize all its calendar reminders that I’ll be much better off. If I follow use my planner I’ll be in much better shape.

Procrastinating always leaves me with sleep deprivation because I work late into the night. This continues a cycle where I am less awake and less attentive in class. Not being at my peak hurts me because I absorb less of the lecture and it ends up in a cycle where I am always tired. Being at my peak will help me stop procrastinating because I will be more alert. I will also realize the consequences of leaving an assignment to the last minute. Leaving everything to the last minute results in a meltdown of my mind. I feel all the work pile on and my frustration increases and I get a huge headache. Being sleep deprived isn’t healthy either. My dad always told me to make sure that I got eight to nine hours of sleep no matter what. I often disobey his advice and I finally realize why he says what he does. The human body needs time to rest and recuperate after a long day. Sleeping is the body’s way of resting the mind and repairing any damage. Without a well rested mind I cannot hope to learn.

So in conclusion, what hinders me from doing my work is procrastination. I have realized what it does to me. It makes me turn out lesser quality work and it leads me to not finish some work on time and adds to my sleep deprivation. I pledge myself to stop procrastinating and to take the initiative on my work. I will start my assignments that day I get them!

1. Tell us who you think you are?

I define myself as a seventeen year old Brooklyn kid who’s currently in his freshman year at college.  I have an insane love for Star Wars and comics. I  love to play video games and hang out with friends. I’m a nice guy but I can be shy at times when meeting new people. I enjoy biking and playing soccer with friends.

2. Share your top three concerns about your freshmen year at Baruch and explain why?

My first concern is getting used to the college atmosphere. I never really ventured out into the city. My elementary, junior high and high schools were all in Brooklyn and they were relatively small schools compared to Baruch. I’m anxious about meeting new people and making new friends as I leave my good friends from high school behind as we all go our separate ways. My anxiety is also caused by the fact that I am shy when it comes to meeting new people and forging new friendships.

My second concern is whether or not I will be able to keep on top of my work. College is definitely way harder than the work in high school and so far I’ve been able to keep on top of my classes but that hasn’t stopped me from worrying about exams, midterms and the final grades that I’ll get for my first semester here at Baruch.

My last concern is that I still do not know what I want to major in. Countless people have told me that no one knows what they want to do freshman year and that they have a year or two to figure it out. Many of my professors have told me, the core classes help Baruch students to find out which subjects they enjoy and which ones they don’t. Though I understand this concept, it still does not stop me from worrying as I am still undecided as to what I will major in.

3. So far, what do you think will make your Baruch College experience different from your high school experience?

I think that the location of Baruch will make it a whole lot different from my high school experience. My high school was located in Brooklyn in a relatively quiet area. Baruch, however is located in the heart of the city. It has a whole lot of great stores and avenues for me to explore. Baruch also is a lot bigger than my high school and contains more students. Meeting more classmates and discovering all that the city has to offer will definitely mark my college years apart from my high school ones.

4. How do you think you’re first year at college will change you?

I think that my first year at college will get me used to the larger work load and hopefully make me a more well rounded student with better time management skills. I also hope that my first year will help me decide on a major.