Author Archives: benjamin.soffer

I would say that Baruch has lived up to my expectations in the class room. The teachers (for the most part) have been accommodating, accepting, and sensitive to all issues, and have been gre conveying at at the topics so that i could understand them. On the other hand, the social life outside of baruch has been sub par. It definatly feels like high school with harder classes, and more work, but less fun. I hope this is just freshman trouble and it improves soon!

Thanks for a great freshman seminar Clemente!

Writing a Monologue was definitely not the hardest thing i have had to write in my life, because that what i wrote was not a monologue. I tried writing a monologue, but it quickly turned into an essay. It was definitely fun to write, but if someone were to ask me if my monologue was good, i dont know what i would say. I would say that my short essay was well written, but monologue, not bad.

Monologue

By Ben Soffer

“To be or not to be, that” would be the question if I were talking about Shakespeare. That would be an appropriate phrase if I were to be addressing you from the 1600’s from my Shakespearian era, but I am not. I am from New York City. When I meet people form outside New York City they divide the city and assume you are something from where you live. If you live on the Upper West Side you are cool, Upper East Side you are rich, SoHo you are trendy, and Harlem you are “dangerous.” This shows how little people know about NYC.

If you were to ask someone from the city about NYC than they would tell you that the whole city, every area, is diverse. Politicians live in Harlem, poor people live on the Upper East Side, weird people live on the Upper West Side, people with 0 fashion sense live in SoHo. It’s these assumptions that create blind hatred everyday. Lets say you hate rich people and when you ask someone you just met where they live and they say “the upper east side” what are you going to do? Are you going to hate them blindly? Or are you going to give them a chance?

Baruch College is the same way. Lets say that you grew up in a Christian home, went to Christian school, and were only friends with Christians. Baruch being the diverse school that it is has people from all different religions attending the school. If you meet someone Jewish, will you view them the same way that you view your Christian friends? Or vice versa if you are Jewish will you view your new Muslim friends the same as your Jewish friends? The idea is tolerance. Whether that means understanding that where someone comes from and not judging them, or realizing that everyone, from every religion is good enough to be your friend, that is tolerance.

Hi! My name is Ben Soffer. I am from Manhattan, and went to the Abarham Joshua Heschel school, a private Jewish school. I love my friends and my family, and i also love the knicks. Like i really love the knicks haah. If i could spend the rest of my life somewhere, it would be in Madison Square Garden, watching the Knicks.

My top 3 concerns about my freshman year were making friends, which i over came, doing well, which i pray every day to do well haha, and my last concern is making sure my teachers like me.

I think that my college experience will be different than high school, because high school didnt have so many people! my high school was 250 kids, baruch is thousands so very different.

I think that my first year at college will make me a stronger individual and will help me make smart decisions in the future.