Author: dandan.chen

Everybody started college with a thought that it will be a long journey. But hey, the fall semester is about to end. Time does fly. Here, I want to talk about our Learning Community 20, the different classes, and finally my goals.

Coming to Baruch, I did not have friends who have the same class as me. But thanks to Learning Community, I made friends. Everybody in LC 20 has the same schedule with exceptional of math. We managed to overcome four months of hardship together. The exams in Business class, the rationality or morality in Philosophy class, the never ending red pen mark of errors in English class, etc. We have come so far, and I wish everybody good luck in their next semester.

I must say, I failed the goal of reaching a 4.0 GPA because I procrastinated too much. I will have to work on time management and procrastination more from now on. And I have to work on my grammar for English class. College is harder than high school, if you do not watch out, you will slack off slowly. So get ready and pick up the pace.

On October 26, 2010, all the freshmen had a mandatory workshop called ‘East — West Identity: Journeys & Transformations’. We met the author of the Book Bitter Sea, Charles Li Na, and watched a panel discussion featuring Charles Li Na, Professor Stan Altman, Professor Tashi Chodron, and Professor Katrin Hansing. The conversation started interesting, with the panelists discussing their experiences in the past and how it shaped who they are. But after 10 minutes, people started to dose off and do their own things. There are very little interactions between the panelist and the students; it is hard for the students to pay attention. But at the end, author, Charles Li Na, allowed students to ask questions directly. I enjoyed the last part the most. I had the urge to ask questions, but I was too shy. Overall, I would not want to go to a workshop like this, but if the whole workshop is about question and answering then I would be happy to join.

The Mishkin Art Gallery

 On Thursday, members of LC 20 went to the Mishkin Art Gallery. It was located on the 23^rd street. After we have made sure that everyone was there, we headed to the gallery.

                First, I had no idea how the place would look like and what kind of art would there be, so I thought the Mishkin Art Gallery was like one of those galleries you see in museums. When we first walked through the door, the Gallery surprised me. What we saw was photographs of various social groups hanging on the wall. Normal museum will have enormous varieties of art like sculptures, paintings, status, etc., which are too complex and boring.  Personally, I like photograph because it is easy to understand. The design of the room was interesting; there were walls that were designed to make the room look like a maze, the design allows more photographs to be hanged.

                The director gave us a tour; she explained that the theme of the photographs was social groups.   Everyone belong to a certain group, everybody belong to their family group. Aside from that, there are the school groups, the club groups, the military groups, the music groups, etc. You can belong to any social groups you can ever imagine. One of the groups that stroked me was the military children; the director mentioned the movie Blood Diamond which was a movie related to the military children. I told myself that I would watch the movie when I get home. The other social group that caught my attention was the Rwanda Genocide group. This group caught my attention because when I was in Junior High School, I saw a movie relating to the genocide in my social studies class. I left the gallery with understandings of the meaning of social groups. As human beings, we need companionships to make our lives more interesting. Even though there are bad social groups, but I believe that there are more good social groups.