KM 3A

Baruch met my expectations completely, only because I didn’t make any unrealistic ones. I came here knowing that as a commuter school smack dab in New York City, one of the best words to define the atmosphere and the people would be rushed – and most people only seem to care about themselves and their classes too much to socialize. So I wasn’t really disappointed. Low expectations are always the best. Not that I don’t like Baruch or anything… I’m just making an observation.

I could have done much better in one class… so I’m kind of upset at myself for that. I pushed myself more than I did in my senior year (which is actually the hardest year in my high school, because I went to an IB school), but I still didn’t put in enough effort. I got a little too carried away with the fact that Baruch’s location is easy access to almost everything.

If I could do anything differently, I’d study more.

I haven’t changed much except for the fact that I’m a lot less shy with strangers and I don’t mind participating.

When I got up to present my monologue, I strayed away from what I really wanted to talk about, but I stayed somewhat along the lines of it.
So now I’ll say everything I wanted to say.

Most people including my closest and dearest friends know extremely little about the life I live at home. They all have the general idea but don’t know the extent to which things go. Sometimes I give little snippets and they can’t handle even that. Oh well. Maybe that’s why I mostly keep things to myself.
My parents have had the biggest and most negative impact on my life. I don’t know if I should thank them or be upset at them for making me the way I am today. My parents started arguing soon after I turned 4, but they have had serious problems since the very beginning of their relationship. Their issues existed solely because they were different people with different priorities and values; I don’t think they were meant to be. I always heard both sides to one story and they often asked me what the solution would be to their problems, take their anger and frustration about each other out on me. On top of that, they would blame each other for the “failure” that I am. I remember begging them to get divorced. Through their problems, I missed out in my childhood and I had no one to go to for consolation because I am an only child.

They failed to understand that raising a child in a household where parents never show affection and love to each other, where there is no such thing as peace, no sense of what being comfortable at home is like, was destructive. The only person who saw it was me.

To this day I long to know what it feels like to enjoy being home, to relax at home, to enjoy my parents’ company.

And because I’ve been dealing with it all by myself for so long, I decided to continue. I’ve become so used to suppressing what I feel, that it’s just a normal part of my life. As depressing as it is, I learned that I am quite optimistic despite everything. I take each day at home as it comes, even if I know a lot of the bad things are going to repeat themselves on an almost daily basis. I just think of my long term goal of setting a positive impact on the people around me, to help those who can’t help themselves. Maybe after all that I’ll be able to love my parents for making me the person I will become.

It’s always really hard for me to answer a question that asks me who I think I am, because I always go into deep thought and make things complicated for myself. I’ll start off with the basics. My name is Tasneema Sobhany and I’m 17 years old. I am Bengali and I was raised in a conflicting hybrid of South Asian and Western culture. I guess you can say I’m social, but at the same time I’m shy. I’ve broken out of the shell that I was in for a couple of years, but not completely; it’s a process. I’m a very caring and compassionate person, and that can tend to go really well or really horribly for me. I can be really hard on myself because I always pass the chance of pushing myself to my fullest due to laziness and stubbornness.
The biggest concern for me as I started attending Baruch was and is succeeding academically. I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to handle the classes, manage my time wisely (because I’m probably one of the worst when it comes to procrastination and time management), but I was reassured because my high school prepared me really well for long lectures and intense assignments. …Not that I tried my best on those assignments, but it made me familiar with the college work I face now.
A big, big concern that I had and still kind of have is about meeting the right kind of people: the right friends, the right classmates. And to me, it all comes down to first impressions and who you click with off the bat. And because I was very shy and self conscious in high school and opened up at an extremely slow pace, I didn’t know if I was capable of making my existence a little more known on such a huge commuter campus.
And I can’t think of a third concern right now.

My college experience is and will be so much more different than my high school experience, because I’m taking college on a much more serious level; it’s my time to really show myself what I have in me to do extremely well. I’m also trying to have fun, so it’ll be hard finding a balance, but it’ll come about. On top of that, I’m being more social and that’s already made my college experience different because I’m talking to more people. =) Everyone’s attitude in college is on a distinctly different level than of those in high school: no one cares. And I think that will make a big impact on my college experience because I have to force myself to be more independent and successful at being independent.
I honestly do not know how this first year of college will change me. I will definitely get beaten up by more than one assignment because I can’t manage my time, and I’ll probably suffer terribly. That’ll change things for the better. I really can’t say about anything else; I guess we’ll see.