I can’t stress enough how important it is to establish an identity. It makes you unique, different from everyone that surrounds you. It is essential one builds on their identity over time. I will begin with all the information about my identity I can reveal to you at this time.
My name is John Yuksekol. I was born and raised in Brooklyn by my Turkish father and Austrian mother, so as you can see i’m quite diverse. I am eighteen years old and I find myself to be very sociable and generous. I eat, sleep, and breathe baseball. I was a spoiled child in my high school. Since I was the varsity baseball captain for two years, I have had everything handed to me on a silver platter in high school. I should not be stereotyped for a typical jock who underachieves academically (Although it may seem like it, I am not trying to come off as arrogant and egotistical). I maintained a 96 transcript average throughout my 4 years in high school. I am constantly working out at the gym. The gym is where all my stress from my baseball team, my family, and my school is released.
My first concern is coming to Baruch unaccompanied by any of my friends. Entering Baruch for the first time, I did not know anybody who attended this college. At my high school, which was very overcrowded, I knew about 75% of the school’s population. It was very hard at first walking around the school and recognizing no one that I was familiar with. The learning communities have helped me meet new people and make me more comfortable in college. My second concern are the professors. In high school, all my teachers told me terrible things about the professors. My teachers said that the professors just lecture fast and do not stop for you at all and they are hardly willing to help you if you fall behind. This made me extremely nervous about how I would be able to adapt to the work environment. So far, I have not experienced anything my teachers have warned me about and that has been a relief. My third concern is the tests. In high school, all the test were simple, common sense examinations. I do not know what to expect from these college exams and that frightens me a bit.
One essential thing that I believe will be different from my high school experience besides what I stated in the second paragraph is that I am going to have to be more independent now. In high school, I had all my friends and we would all work together in order to excel. The main purpose of college is to help me pursue a career of my choice and in the end, it is going to benefit me more than anyone else.
I believe my first year at college will help me improve my communicational skills and it will open me up to different fields of studies that I can begin to inquire about to see if any of these studies will be the right career choice for me. Finally, Baruch College will open me up to new views of the business world in which I have yet to inquire about.
