Honestly I didn’t get much out of the panel discussion. The amount of people in the room and the faulty equipment made it hard for me to focus on the speakers and take in what they were saying.
The main point that I got after sitting through the workshop was the importance of identity and how it is up to yourself to decide what your identity is going to be. Take the students at Baruch for example, we all come from very different backgrounds, ethnicities, and nationalities. We grew up in different households with different traditions, beliefs, and values. Some of us may have had to overcome difficulties that could never have been imagined by others who were more fortunate. Growing up, Charles Li, the author of The Bitter Sea, faced many obstacles in terms of identity and an unstable childhood. As he came of age, he transformed from a little boy who would constantly seek attention and approval from his manipulative father to a Chinese American who learned the importance of identity and used that to further his own ambitions and goals in life.
