Author Archives: victor.huang

My experience at Baruch College has just met my expectations. I did not expect much from it to begin with. Before starting college in the end of summer, I felt uneasy at first, but as soon as my first real day was over, I felt a good sense of peace and joy. However it is interesting to note that there is a one dollar pizza store near the school. That store seemed like a complete mirage to me at first for two reasons: Pizza is usually more than twice that amount, and the store is in midtown Manhattan. Unfortunately for me, the pizza was smaller than average, but nonetheless it was still worth it.
My first semester at Baruch was okay. The classes along with work almost go the best of me. At first, I did not expect to have a job during the school year. Classes were okay. I hated Calculus, no surprise to me because I always had an extremely antagonistic attitude towards any math class. English was boring, but the professor is not a strict grader. My essays make no sense to me, and I always feel bad for the person who has to read my work. Anthropology was a very interesting and fun class, I got many good laughs in the class that I do not get in any other class. Public Administration was boring as well, but I get to look out the window. U.S. history is really boring, however I always find time in that class to crack jokes to my nearby classmates. I have been trying and putting some effort to my classes, but math requires more effort than two of the other classes combined. Originally I saw myself as an extremely productive student that would do anything to get a good score. But I realized if I were to walk down this path, I would become incredibly angst ridden and depressed reminiscent of a time in my high school years. I don’t think risking my morality and my mental health is worth it. Instead I opted to just go with the flow and accept things for what they are. Life is short; I do not want to spend it in depression. A B is enough for me. And a passing grade in math will make me real happy. I made some good friends and had many good laughs throughout.
If I were able to do things differently in the first semester, not much would be different. The only thing off the top of my head is the textbooks. The textbooks were too damn expensive. Although many of the professors asked to buy them, most of the textbooks were useless. For math, the professor never checked the hw and practice problems can be found online. The English textbook is a joke because there is much more information than what needs to be learned. Furthermore everything in the book can be found online in a more concise form. The public administration books were by far the most useless because the teacher made the students do reading summaries that basically got what needed to be learned. I feel like a complete dumbass for making this purchase. The anthropology book was another waste of money because it was required for the students to only read a few chapters, mostly at the beginning of the semester. The US history textbook was the most useful, but still relatively useless because the tests in class are very minute in detail and do not require a lot of information.
I did not expect to have a job during the semester. This only added more angst to my agenda. But most importantly, Baruch College changed my idea of money. Before entering the first semester, I was relatively frugal. After the first weeks of the semester, I felt poor despite the fact that I had a salary from work and savings. Even though I had more money than ever before in my life, I felt that if I were to spend a little of it I would fall into debt. There I had a revelation: wealth is not of the pocket, but of the heart and mind. I come from a relatively wealthy family and I have a salary which few college students have, but I still feel financially poor. For this reason, a career in finance seems logical to me. I have yet to spend any money from my salary, and I probably won’t in a long time. Food comes first though, good thing I got that 1 dollar pizza place 😉

My name is Victor Huang. If I could find the right words to describe myself, I would say that I am very outgoing, but only to an extent. Generally at first I can be really shy and timid, but once you get to know me, I’m no longer shy. A lot of people including my friends say I’m very helpful towards them. I cannot always agree with them, because I sometimes find the time and the need to irritate my friends. Furthermore a lot of people say I’m humorous. I find this true, but only to a small degree. Most of my jokes are nothing more than toilet humor. In general, I always hold an uncertain outlook on life; this can be the result of school, where I’m usually uncertain with the course material. The school year at Baruch is going decent so far, as I expected it to be. College is different from high school because the teachers don’t baby the students. Every student is responsible for doing his or her work. I got adjusted to this already in high school, some of my teachers were vindictive towards the students and I will never forget some of them who completely changed my views on school mostly in a negative way though. The workload is too bad considering the fact that I do absolutely nothing at home anyways. In my high school, there was a lot of work to do. I’m glad I actually did most of it because it made the transition from high school to college easier.  My main challenge in college at the moment is calculus class. Math terrified me in my junior year of high school so much that I decided not to take it in senior year. Merely passing the course will probably be satisfactory with me. Another challenge in college is paying for the textbooks, these textbooks are extremely pricey and mostly no more than a scam to trick students for their money and thus make the publishing companies more rich. But I digress, at some point the textbooks will be required for class, but most of the time I buy used ones solely for the fact that they are cheaper. I decided not to rent textbooks because they come at a high price and they cannot be sold to the incoming students of next semester or term. I’m planning to sell my textbooks once I don’t need them. At the same time, I feel cheated because once you pay for the textbooks; you let the seller acknowledge that you, yourself are willing to pay an outrageous amount for a textbook. I feel exploited because of that. Another thing regarding economic issues is student debt. Fortunately my parents could pay the tuition without having to take out a loan, so I’m in a good spot right now. Credit card companies think they can appeal to me with their advertisements, but I know the scheme behind credit cards. With this in mind, some people can categorize me as cheap. I’m not offended by this and I actually find this to be absolutely true most of the time. I was raised to be cheap, so I can’t really deny it and I don’t. Being frugal in this economy has many positive benefits. However there are many benefits to college as well. The most important is more freedom. In high school I was bombarded with work to do, but now its not the case with college… yet. The free time allows me to sleep more at home, and I cherish every moment of it. Hopefully in college, I will learn to be more disciplined as well as more independent and hard working. Currently I have a job on Fridays, when school is not in session. This job should make me more independent as well. Commuting to Baruch College is not an issue for me most of the time because I live pretty close to the school compared to most people, hence why I chose this school instead of Hunter College, which was my second choice. I really identify myself as a New Yorker, especially when commuting to school: I would always pretend to mind my own business when in fact I always stare at other people when they are not looking. In addition, I always find the urge to look at other people’s newspapers when I’m in the subway. It is really just a part of New York City culture and cannot be explained in more precise terms.

i think Lucas’s monologue was very interesting and straight to the point.  He pointed out Mr. Hoffman’s eyebrows were very distracting as well. Me, personally I didn’t notice because of the goatee beard.

I think Kimberly Delgado’s monologue was very informative and easy to relate to.

Hansol’s monologue was good as well. Now I can now call him Han solo or han solo dolo.

Who do I think I am? That is not really a tough question to answer because I think I have a good idea about myself. I can be generally out going when I want to be. In addition, the stupidest things have a tendency to come out of my mouth. Overall I can be described as lazy, vindictive, spiteful, and cheerful person. I was born in New York City, so English was my first language, although I am capable of speaking the Tai Shan dialect of Chinese at home. However my English is a lot better than my Chinese. My neighborhood is located in the northern part of the Brooklyn borough, where Queens and Brooklyn meet up. In fact I can see the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway) from my house. It takes me about 2 minutes to walk to the BQE, so that shows how close I am to Queens and far away from the rest of Brooklyn despite actually living in the borough.

In my freshman year I hope to get good grades in college as well as make new friends at the same time. And most important of all, live the college experience. Getting good grades in college is important because good grades mean a good gpa, a good gpa means a better resume. I want to make new friends like most of the people that go to college. College is just another important chapter in my life that I must live through.

Baruch has been satisfying so far. It met my expectations dead on. The people I meet are interesting as well, however for a college that is so diverse, I find it odd that my high school had a more diverse crowd personality wise. So far, a lot of the people seem similar to each other. College will require more work than in high school and the stakes are higher, however the workload is still very manageable compared to the workload I had for my junior year of high school. Furthermore the classes don’t meet every day and only on 4 days of the week leaving in more free time for me to sleep and just relax in general. Money is another important aspect. I really miss the student metro cards and not having to pay for textbooks. In college, its quite the opposite, in addition college has an annual tuition that needs to be paid. I will need to work harder to get what I want out of college.

My first year in college should be able to make me more independent as well as more hardworking. I’ve been very emotionally unstable in high school due to the workload or lack of workload. I hope that the workload will keep me occupied so that I won’t become emotionally unstable, but at the same time not too much work that I become emotionally unstable. Overall I want to become more independent as well as richer because I work on Fridays. The combination of college and work should help me become more responsible as well as independent.