LC 20

I went to the Rubin Museum of Art for global community awareness/arts at Baruch. Before I went in, I thought that the museum will be like a tour, there would be a beginning and an end. But when I entered I had no idea where to go. Every exhibit has a room of its own in the museum. I wanted to go see the Buddhist exhibit that involves grain of sands, but I did not know where to go. I was lost in the museum. At last, I decided to go downstairs and see the exhibit there, without knowing which one is it. When I entered the exhibit I saw that the name of the exhibit was “A British on a Mountain Kingdom”. The exhibit was about ten to fifteen pictures of people who lived in mountains in Asia. The pictures were taken around 1910, so it was amazing to see how people lived in difficult environment and made the best of it

I attended the “Identities in motion” workshop the academic enrichment. The workshop was a panel of few people, who answered questions. The highlight of the workshop was that the author of “the bitter sea” was there. I looked forward to see him because I wanted to find out if he is like I imagined him. When I saw, he looked a little shorter than what I imagined him. The panel discussion was ok, but there was a problem hearing the people who spoke because there were no microphones. The thing I liked the most in that workshop was the questions-answers session. Students came to the stage and asked Charles Li questions about his life. This gave a deeper analysis of Charles Li as a person

Similarly to what everybody else said, the Mishkin Art Gallery was not at all what I expected. I was very surprised to see what it actually was because I thought that it would consist of much more than just framed pictures in a small room. Of course, as far as framed pictures in a small room go, this exhibit was somewhat interesting in the sense that it incorporated within itself such a great deal of different ideas and topics. This is pretty rare for me to say because just like others have mentioned before me, I am not the biggest fan of all the artsy stuff and this exhibit was not exactly where I was dying to go from the very beginning, but it did not turn out to be too bad and it was pretty interesting and not very time consuming. Dr. Kraskin was the one giving the tour and in terms of tour guiding the experience was a success because even though the pictures might not have been interesting at all to the naked eye, the fact that she was there and was describing different aspects in such great detail definitely added to the experience and allowed me to understand things that that I would not ordinarily understand and extract from regular pictures or photographs. However, judging from the fact that this tour was like and seemed as if it was a private one, I would say that it would be an understatement to say that this gallery is not the most popular destination for students of Baruch College. There are definitely many different ways in which the gallery could be made into a much more engaging experience that would both make it more interesting and allow for a much more populated flow of people to its doors. Nonetheless, it was not a bad experience and definitely something worth experiencing and it was a good way of fulfilling our LC’s art workshop requirement.

             This semester has been pretty good. I thought the classses that i got were good, and challenging. The classes that were in the block started my freshman year at college at a good start. The classes are classes needed and focused on material to help the transition. At of five classes I think that three of them were fun and not so challenging including speech, calculus and of course freshman seminar. My other two classes English and Philosophy aren’t so hard but gave me a challenge and made me realize this is not highschool. My english is not hard it is just that English is not my subject and i am not to good at it so to write 3-7 pages  is hard at leadt for me. philosophy is not hard either but the reading material is hard to understand and that is where the answers to the essays we have to write come from . Since this is the only thing the proffesor is grading the class on i get frustrated and knowing taht my grade comes from something i am not understanding and is hard for me to. Otherwisse the semester has gone good and I am learning things that will help me further my education in this first semester block schedule. The people I met , the classes I took and the things I have learned gave me a good first semster at Baruch College.

This past Friday (11/5), we had a representative from the academics department come in to talk regarding the registration process. Most of the freshmen I know will be registering for classes on the 23rd of November. Prior to the workshop, I had a brief idea on some of the classes that I plan to take next semester. In high school, my goal was to get all my required classes (art, music and Spanish) out of the way first. I assumed that I can apply a similar strategy in college. I was wrong! According to the academic adviser, our goal is to aim for the requirements that we need to fulfill in order to be considered for the different schools within Baruch. In other words, the “less important” classes such as science, music and history should not be my top priority. Although I am not used to this method, I believe that this is a reasonable and faster method that will lead me to my goal as an accountant.
There were a lot of information from this workshop.  For example, mistakes can easily be made in the registration process. Luckily, the academic adviser went over some common mistakes and how to correct them. Hopefully, I can avoid these mistakes during my registration. After the workshop, I feel that I have a better understanding of what is expected of me as a Baruch student. Being a student who is unclear about what is required makes me feel like a lost tourist without a map or any sense of direction. Luckily, after this workshop, I feel that someone had just handed me a map and directions. Now I know exactly where I need to go and how I can get there in a timely fashion.

On October 29th, 2010, we hada visitor fro the STARR Career Development Center come and speak with us during our freshman seminar class. I do not recall her name, but she seemed like she knew her stuff and was very funny. During the visit, one of the topics she explained was resume writing, and any questions we may have had about it.

What i found really helpful was that she explained to us step by step in detail about what we needed to know. She also answered all the questions i had before i even asked them. Another great thing was that she gave us handouts where we would be able to see examples and use it as a layout for our resumes.

When we were done with resume writing techniques, she moved on to interviewing skills. She explained to us the type of questions you sould expect and how to answer them.

It was an extremely helpful workshop.

Last week, we also got a visitor in our Freshman Seminar class on Friday October 29^th 2010 at 9:30 AM. This workshop fulfills our career exploration requirement and was presented during class time. Our visitor was May and she was a representative of the STARR Career Development Center. She came in to talk to us about our resumes and our potential interviews that we will have to pass in order to secure a well-paid job. She made it clear that these two things are just as important as having the actual grades or the extra curricular activities. She emphasized over and over again how important presentation is when it comes to the resume and interview, more specially the interview. She said that it is very likely that you will be able to win over the employer with your personal character traits if they are the right ones even if you might have lower grades or not much experience. She said that the relationship you make with your future employer in that 30 to 45 minute window is one that can make all the difference. I have heard quite a few different presentations similar to this one in the past and I have even created a resume for myself before although I never really used it or found any good use for it but I did find that this presentation had some good aspects in it. Her presentation style was not the best and did not make me instantly want to listen to her but for the most part she did say a lot of things that I found to be both true and interesting and somewhat revealing. One of the most interesting things that I learned is that at the STARR Career Development Center we could actually set up mock interviews for practice. I found this to be so interesting because I never knew this service was offered and I haven’t heard of this service in other schools and I might actually take advantage of this opportunity in order that when I actually go to a real interview I will not be as nervous and will have a very good idea of the questions that I will be asked and the tone and pace at which the interview will proceed. I also found it very interesting that there are people in Baruch who are willing to help you in that way for that specific purpose. Although they will help you with only the basics and no one will literally go into full depth of your personal situation I still think that these opportunities will be very helpful because they will serve as good practice for the first couple of interviews and those interviews will serve as good practice for the ones to come and the ones that you will be taking much more seriously.  Overall, I’m not sure that May’s personal way of presenting all this information was necessarily correct but nonetheless she mostly got the point across and was able to inform us of this part of the center so we at least know that this type of help exists and could potentially be pretty useful.

Last week, on Tuesday October 26th 2010, our whole LC went to Mason Hall for the East – West, Identity: Journeys and Transformations panel discussion. This discussion took place from 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm and was a mandatory academic enrichment workshop that we had to attend with the rest of our freshman class. There were quite a few different panelists present who each shared their experience with us, but the main reason for this get together was, of course, Charles N. Li, who is the author of The Bitter Sea and who was present there in front of us and ready to answer our questions. Like mentioned by some of my classmates in the previous blogs I got to read this did not seem like the most interesting event ever straight of the bat when I first heard about it and the fact that it was mandatory did not make it any better obviously, but in the end it actually did turn out to be quite interesting because this was an opportunity that does not come around very often. We usually read books and look at the authors and think to ourselves how great and amazing and almighty they are especially if the book is good but we never quite realize that they are in fact regular people just like us who simply put a great deal of effort into making writing their fulltime job. Also like mentioned previously I do regret not having my book there so Charles could sign it, but disregarding that it was a rewarding experience to see Charles in person and have him answer many questions that people asked. When reading a book we get the idea that the author knows exactly what he or she is going to say and that he or she never stutters or stops to think exactly what he or she is going to say but of course these authors are in fact just people and Charles also had to slow down and sometimes re ask the question just so he could answer them. I liked one question in specific when a kid asked him if there was any significance to him naming the book The Bitter Sea. For such an easy question for an author I found that Charles had quite a bit of trouble putting words together to answer it. Instead of revealing some deeper meaning and making us think again how intelligent he is, he just said that it was something catchy and something that came to him and had absolutely no significance. I was a little disappointed in this response as I was asking myself the same thing as I was reading the book and I was expecting a much better answer. Of course the other big hit was how good Charles looks for a 70 year old man. That was the other question that caught my attention as this kid asked what was his secret for staying in such great shape. I could relate to the feelings of the person who asked the question as I myself believed Charles to be not more than 50. Overall, I found this experience to be much better and much more rewarding than I thought it would be when I was walking in.

Today, we had May, from the STARR Career Development Center, come in and talk to us about the basics in resume writing and interviews. I am very happy that I was able to be a part of this workshop. Out of all the workshops that I have attended, I must say this is the one that I can relate to and use the most. Resume writing and interviewing skills are essential for a job placement. You might have the GPA or even a ton of extracurricular activities, but if you don’t know how to present yourself, then you may not get the job you are looking for. Before this workshop, I thought this would be a repeat on what I had learned about resuming writing in high school. After this workshop, I realized that what I knew was just the mere basics. There are so many things that I am lacking in my resume. In fact, I will have to update my resume although I may not be using it soon. May briefly went over the basics of interviewing. Due to the lack of time, she was unable to go more in depth about it. Although she was not able to get through everything, she did leave us with contact information and their office location in which I may go to for more assistance. Overall, I really enjoyed this informational workshop. I look forward to meeting May and the rest of the STARR Career Development team for their expect assistance.

Annie, Eldan and I went to the Making the transition from student to professional workshop. This was the 21st of October where Andy Teach the presenter gave some key information.  At the workshop there was not only freshman’s but sophomores and juniors and even Michelle was there.  Andy Teach gave the audience information on what to put on a resume, professional social networking sites like linkedin.com. Also he explained finding a job and the interview process on what to do and what not to do. He explained things very well and he related everything to the audience. He then  added  his own stories about him being the interviewer at the company he works at and other stories that really intrigued me to the information he talked about. The information he gave us really did sink in and i remembered most of the do’s and don’ts of the interview and being socially responsible. I think he really did a good job in pulling the audience in but at the same time giving the necessary information to help us become professionals ourselves.