PR 1A

Hi, my name is Ralph Labaton and I am an orthodox Jew from Brooklyn. In other words, it is because of me (well my religion and thousands of others) that you guys have already received off from school this semester. I am actually not 18 yet but I am still a freshman in college.

My number one concern when thinking about my college career is failing. There is no one watching your back in college like there was in high school and the burden of success is completely on your own shoulders. If you want to do well and earn a good average to open doors for you, you need to put in the effort and work hard. My second concern is food. Being a religious Jew it is quite hard to find kosher restaurants in the area and so I have to travel to great lengths (3 hour breaks in the day, thank god), grab something from our local Starbucks or wait till I get home. It is quite annoying though and I am in desperate need for a kosher pizza place in the area. My third concern is money. It is very hard to make but it is very easy to spend it. A metro card for the week runs about fifteen dollars or so and then we have the books. I have spent about three hundred dollars on books and they are only for one semester. If anyone knows someone who is hiring after school I can use some extra cash.

Now college is a lot different than high school was, for me at least. I went to a yeshiva or a Jewish private school where everyone I went to school with was part of my community. I guess what I am trying to say is that I knew almost everyone in my school since they were in diapers. In college there are names I have never even heard of before. There are so many different kinds of people from different backgrounds around you, you can almost get lost. But hey, that’s New York for you. Also for a kid that used to walk four blocks to school every day, to go into the city for school every day is a big change. The city used to be an adventure every time I went, now it just my daily activity. Well on the plus side now I know where everything is and can’t get lost especially since some of my friends go to Hunter and NYU and I visit them.

My first year of college has changed me dramatically so far and I don’t see an end in sight. For one I spend more time now in the library then I do at home even though in recent memory before college I can’t truly remember the last time I studied for something. Also I am interacting with many people that I have never met before and am making some new friends. I hope all my adjustments are for the good and that I and all my classmates can succeed here in Baruch.

Alright lets get this over with. My name is Fahim Ahmed. I am a freshman at Baruch college. I was born in Bangladesh on August 1992. I came to the United States at the age of three with my mother. My father had already been living here for about three years before we arrived. I am more fluent in english than bengali which is kind of sad since I was born there. I barely understand people when I go back and its always hard for me to answer their questions but I try anyway. I enjoy watching football and mma which stands for mixed martial arts for those that don’t know. I like to relax and take it easy and enjoy going outside. I used to stay inside a lot but i realized there is so much more in the outside world that I’m missing out on.

Right now I don’t have too many concerns but if i had to name three they would be passing, not studying enough, and becoming a zombie. I want to pass all my classes and move on. I hate having to retake something because its the same lessons all over again and I would probably go crazy sitting in the same classroom listening to the same lectures from the same professor all over again. I am not the type of person who sits down and studies for four hours. I can not do that because I would find my self reaching for the television remote after about five minutes or so. I have never studied in my life but I need to start doing that for college or I won’t pass. But getting into that study habit brings me to my third concern which is becoming a zombie. No not a flesh eating creature of the night but a mindless being called a “student”. I see some of them around the school sitting in the chairs in the halls but mostly in the *shudders*……library. They look so tired and worn out just like zombies that I’m thinking I hope I never become one of them. But in life you have to make some sacrifices and if being one of them helps me to pass well I guess I’ll have to join the dark side.

High school was a good time in my life. Great friends easy classes and just having fun. My college experience will definitely differ from my high school one. How you ask? Well college is harder and kind of boring which was surprising. I guess Baruch isn’t a party school like some of the sunys my friends go to and they always have the wildest stories. But I guess I have to make the best of it and do what I can while I am here.

My first year of college help me set my goals to be more academically oriented. I plan to study more *sighs* but still have some fun but so far it looks like to be a boring year. Oh well guess I will make the best of it.

My name is Qiu Lin and I am a freshman at Baruch college. I am an immigrant from China raised in New York since i was three years old. I was describe myself as a Person who wants to enjoy life to the fullest. Although I would rather live in the moment I know that I have to look into the future too. I hope to go into business management or accounting. my personality is a main concern in my college career. so far i have been having trouble balancing my free time with school work. since college is different from high school it has been a bit difficult to adapt to all the extra time i have on my hands. i have problem concentrating on one thing for a long period of time and there are always a lot of distractions around me. Another concern i have about college is getting a mindset that college is different from high school. i know thats what freshman seminar is meant to do so i hope to learn a lot from it. i believe that my mindset is still in the senior year of my high school and summer vacation because i have not been focus on my work for college. i hope that this problem can be solved soon so that i can focus on my studies. I believe that the main difference between high school and college is the length of the classes and the long breaks we have in between classes. for the last decade i have grown used to going to classes for eight hours straight with little or no breaks. I enjoy my breaks in between classes but i think three hours is a bit much. In addition to the breaks another major difference between college and high school is that the students are expected to be able to work on their own. The professors won’t be chasing us down for our assignments like in high school. reading the syllabus and keeping myself up to date with the work is something that i will need to get used to. Sometimes the work will be sent to my college email and i have to check me email daily now which is something i don’t normally do. During my first year in college i hope to become a more responsible person. i know that i am still young and like to fool around a lot. what i hope to get from my first year in college is how to manage my time and how to stay on task. In my opinion those skills are the most important when it comes to learning or even working later on in life. i want to be able to keep up with everything so that i won’t have a giant task at the deadline just like right now i am doing this blog the day before its due. In the future i hope that this wont happen again because it is a realy big pain to have a lot of work all piled up.