Author Archives: Qian Chen

The Sidney Mishkin Gallery visit was okay because I didn’t really understand the drawings and I found those drawing to be very strange. All the drawing were by Hans Hofmann and almost all of them were black and white. The artist mostly used charcoal, watercolor, crayons and ink to do his painting. I noticed that on some of his drawing he only used shapes including squares and triangle to  create images and portraits of woman, some of which were naked, man and fox. On one of his drawings there was a lot of scribbling and i don’t see how it is a piece of art but I guess it is.  I know the purpose of this visit is to lead us to discover new qualities about ourselves but I didn’t find any new qualities about myself.  It certainly didn’t trigger any thoughts and maybe it’s because I wasn’t really looking into the drawings in depth or maybe it’s because I just don’t understand  art.

I thought the Career Workshop was really helpful. The lady explained everything thoroughtly from how to write a resume to how to act and what to expect during a professional interview and she introduced the career center. I think this workshop prepared us for the future because sooner or later we are going to have to write a resume and be interviewed. The Starr Career Developmen Center is just anther useful resource provided by the school to the students. It gives us an opportunity to succeed in the real world because it helps us locate jobs and internships that are available in the market. These will  better prepare us for our future job as we gain more experiences.  The lady even made this experience interesting and funny at the same time. It was so much better than the panel discussion

So if I want to get a job, I could just go to the Starr Career Development Center website and look for a job that interests me. And if I have trouble writing an resume or want to practice, I could schedule an appointment for a resume review, or a mock employment interview. That sounds great.

The East-West Identity: Journeys & Transformation was okay. I thought we could get a better seating. Maybe it was because we were all the way in the back or  it was the microphone, I didn’t get to hear everything they said. But I did get to hear Charles N. Li taking about reality. He had a good insight on reality. Charles Li and Katrin Hansing talked about their life experience and from which they discovered their identity and they all seemed to suggest that most people find their identity while studying in college.  I hope what they said was true. I believe professor katrin Hansing said that “college opens up a lot of opportunity and we are given more options”. I don’t want to be too critical but one of the panelists used too many “you know” and it looked unprofessional.

I care a lot about my future. Since the amount of education I get determines my job and how I will my life, it is essential that I do my best and succeed in college. I am afraid that if I don’t succeed in college I won’t be able to find a good job and live a comfortable and luxury life. Even though I hate going to school and doing homework, I do it anyway just for the sake of getting a good job where I only need to work for 8 hours a day and still get a decent paying. And of course I want to become an educated person. Now I really need to work extra hard and live up to my potential.

If there is one thing in this world I hate the most, I would say giving speeches. I am just not a public speaker. I would rather die than to give a speech in front of everybody.  I hate it, but because I need it in order to graduate from Baruch and besides I need to overcome this “speech phobia”, I am working on my speech skills. I hope by the end of this semester or by the end of this school year I would be able to do it confidently and professionally.

If I were to describe myself I would say I am a very realistic and a straightforward person. I don’t like to use my time dreaming something that is unreasonable and beyond my reach. I’d rather spend my dreaming time to socialize with my friends and do something more practical. I am also very independent. And I am just an ordinary girl who wants everything to go smooth in her life.

My top three concerns about my refreshman year at Baruch College are not finishing my homework on time, not succeeding in all my exams and arriving late to classes. I had never had the same amount of homework in high school as in college. In high school homework from history class would maybe consist of six to seven pages but in college its thirty to thirty-five pages. When I was in high school I complained of having too much homework until I came to college and started to know what real work is. If I could go back to twelfth grade  I would never complain again. In high school one day or two days before the exam my teacher would review for it but in college nobody will take my hands and walk me through this process anymore. Since I am on my own now I have to be more serious and organized. The subway really got me worry because since we can’t anticipate when an accident is going to happen and on rare occasions when it does happen, lateness is inevitable.

I think every aspect of college experience is different from that of high school. Because the schedule in college is not back-to-back, it allows me after class to absorb in the lesson and understand it. In college I can leave during the middle of a class if I like but in high school I was not permitted to leave the school until I had finish all of my classes. There are more options and choices in college than in high school.

My first year at college will prepare to become better at managing time and  still have the time to socialize with my friend. By the end of my first year in college I think I will develop an effective method with which I will use to study for my tests. I will be a more organized person. I will not procrastinate until the night before it is due to write my paper. I will always give myself plenty of time to write a paper because a planned out paper is always better than a rush paper.