PR 1A

Hello everyone, my name is Gibraan Ali. I am seventeen years old. i was born in queens and went to Benjamin N. Cardozo high school in Bayside. I came to Baruch College because i think its a good beginning ; i hope to move on to a better school within the next four years. My main problem that i currently struggle with in college is the concept that the student has to remember everything and is never reminded about anything.  I believe its because at the beginning of the year i had trouble transitioning into college. Now that i have made that transition, the next step is to break the bad habits acquired in high school. One major habit is procrastination which is probably why I’m writing this blog on the last day. I cant exactly say any of the classes i take are difficult because if i study they wont be but one subject i can see there will be problems in is writing. The teacher never addresses the class instead she rambles on about her life’s high and low times , mainly low times. I would rather she didn’t teach instead of ramble on for an hour and forty minutes. The work isn’t hard but the way the teacher presents the assignment makes it confusing at times, especially formatting.

hi this is tommy kiriakos and im doing this a little on the late side so im going to try and free style this. I’ll start with the basics i am currently nineteen. i live in Staten island new York. i am full Egyptian and i know some arabic.i have been attending Baruch just under a month and from what i have experienced so far my greatest three concerns have to be getting there everyday and thats because my commute takes about an hour and forty five minutes to two hours and i often oversleep. my second biggest concern is the workload mostly for my English class its like i didn’t know anything about real writing before this class. the rest of my classes are challenging but defiantly manageable.my third concern is in regards to all presentations im expected to do. i severely hate public speaking but from what i hear im not alone there. My thoughts of Baruch so far is it is a college that thoroughly prepares its students for their futures. all of the people i have meet have been nice and helpful. the classes are all somewhat challenging,like i said earlier, but thats probably to be expected for someone just out of high school. The way that i think my first year at baruch will change me by making me more open to things in life,and hopefully i will get over my fear of speaking in public.

Hey, im Vinny. I was born in Chicago, but lived in Staten Island for as long as I can remember.  I attended both a Catholic grammar school, as well as a Catholic high school due to the religious beliefs of my family. Although I do not particularly share these beliefs, nor do i support the close-minded, biased approached toward curriculum, Ive had many good friends throughout the years, some of which I still see frequently. My high school experiences bring me great memories of Friday Night Football games under the lights, house parties every weekend (though many of which, I hazily remember), and just getting together with some friends to start a BBQ on the nearest beach/parking lot. During my Senior year, shortly after the end of my high school football career, I quickly realized that I had to make, what could be, one of the most important decisions of my life. While my friends were choosing their “dream school’s”, based on where the best parties/campus/social experiences were, I began to question whether this was the best choice for me. Although I will always appreciate my high school memories, I realized that, in order for me to attain MY particular goals and ambitions, I had to choose the college that was best for ME. I chose to come to Baruch so that I can pursue my interest in Corporate Financing/Business Management. Since I made that decision,  I’ve slowly begun to take the steps that I feel are necessary for me to succeed. I’ve begun to look for a new job, read non-fiction [(never finished an actual book before starting college) (‘The Tao of Wu’ by The RZA; GREAT book)], as well as, take a much more serious approach towards my studies. While I feel as though I am in the midst of a major turning point in my life, I still enjoy going out to party with friends, although it’s been tough; Having very few friends left in the boroughs. I now live in the SVA dorms, on the Lower East Side, in a single room. I’ve made a couple friends in the building so far, but I hope to see more people hanging out after school/on the weekends.  The transition from high school to college has been both an enlightening, as well as stressful experience, but I believe that things will soon start falling into place.

Hey hows it going, my name is Jordan Ovadia. I’m currently 18 years old and live in Brooklyn , NY which means I commute to school everyday. In the period of time that I have been in college (roughly 1 month), the first thing that I had realized was that this is not high school anymore. College is a lot more challenging and puts way more responsibility on the individual as there is no one on top of you constantly reminding you what you need to do or where you need to be. College is all on you. I originally wanted to go away to college to Syracuse University upstate but after a talk with my parents and much persuasion from them and from my older brothers, I decided to stay here in NYC where I go to school full time and work whenever I am free with my family. I have already changed my mind a lot of times about what I want to do when I am older. My first thought was a pharmacist, then to get into the finance world, then to work with the family, and now part of me is thinking of being a psychiatrist. Indecisive I know. The biggest difference for me between high school and college is the workload. I believe that myself and my fellow classmates have received more work this past month then I had received in almost 3 months of my Senior year in high school. There is just so much going on, from workshops, to people running around everywhere, needing to buy books, and considering what classes and what majors you want in the near future. It is simply overwhelming to me. However, I believe that just how I adapted to high school after middle school, I can easily adapt to College as I am slowly starting to learn. After all, if the work were impossible it wouldn’t be assigned right? Thats something I like to keep in mind whenever my professors assign a lot of work, along with the thought that thousands of people graduate college each year so why can’t I get through it as well? The answer is, I can do it and so can everyone else. There is a reason why some people make it to college and some don’t. It is because the ones who don’t are the ones who would not be able to get through everything. After college I hope to go on to graduate school and earn my masters degree but that is all in good time. That is also dependent on whether or not I will be working by then with my family or somewhere else. I hope to work with my older brothers and get into their mens clothing line together with them. I hope to get to know all of you better than I already do and I look forward to getting through the semester with you guys and wish you all success!

PS. Check out the website for the clothing! Launching spring/summer 2011. http://www.ovadiaandsons.com/

Thanks!

Hello everyone , my name is Nima Baratian and I am an orthodox jew from Great Neck , NY. Great Neck is located on Long Island in Nassau County. I am currently 18 years old and a freshman here at Baruch College. I attended John L Millers Great Neck North High School. I still have that high school mentality as I am attempting to transition with into college. My biggest fear of college was the fact that there was so many new people to meet since there are over 10 thousand students so to me it was a scary place. My whole entire high school consisted of only 900 students. Originally I was not going to attend Baruch college. I had gotten accepted to one of my dream schools the University of Miami. I went and visited and was about to attend there this year, However one factor caused me to change my mind. This was the fact that I got an amazing job offer from my father to work in one of his five car dealerships and start off as a salesman and gradually work my way up. So due to this offer I did not go to UMiami and instead commute to Baruch everyday. Here at Baruch I have already made many new friends and have a ton of friends from high school and my hometown that attend Baruch, almost 60 of them. I also have many friends who are attending Hunter and NYU so on my breaks I am always occupied and have someone to hang out with. My two best friends since childhood both go to Baruch and just got their own 2 bedroom apartment in NYC. I usually sleep on the couch in their apartment 3 times a week so my commute is not that bad. I do not need to come all the way from Great Neck everyday. I think I am begining to transition into college slowly and smoothly.

Hi, I’m Alex. I come from Long Island. I go to Baruch College, which is located in Manhattan. I don’t really know what else to say about myself. I live on the Upper East Side in a dorm, so even though I’m commuting, I’m also living with other students. Mostly art students though, so it barely counts. I like food, which is probably the best part of living in Manhattan. There’s so many good restaurants all over, the only problem is that I can never find anyone to go with me due to lack of funds or other excuses.

One concern I have for my freshman year is that I’ll do poorly. I didn’t try in high school, and I really have to force myself to do even a little bit of work here. I’m hoping it will get easier in time. Another concern I have is that I won’t really get to have the full college experience that my friends are having. It’s kind of cool living in Manhattan, but everyone basically goes home after class, and there aren’t really any good places to hang out that I’ve found that aren’t clubs. In my town we could just hang out on the beach, so it’s pretty different. It’s definitely harder to make friends at Baruch than it is in other colleges, especially when most people have very little in common with me and have people they went to high school with. A third concern I have is that I’ll get really fat. Seriously, all I’ve been doing is eating. It’s not good. At least my building has a gym.

Baruch is definitely different from high school. For one thing, I’m living on my own now. It’s weird being completely responsible to wake myself up, do my laundry, cook and a bunch of other things. Another thing that makes it different is the diversity of people. My high school was diverse, but there were a lot of people similar to me who I was friends with. At Baruch, I can’t really find anyone I can actually relate to beyond being in the same classes. It’s a weird feeling. Even weirder is I’ve become better friends with people I never spoke to in high school just based on circumstance. This isn’t taking into account the actual classes. In high school, all my classes were 42 minutes, so basically that’s my attention span for a class. Actually, probably closer to 30 because for the last 10 I was just looking at the clock. It’s much different having to concentrate for 2 hours on math, and it’s definitely harder. There’s also the fact that there’s a lot more distractions in college. Other than the car horns and sirens that you hear all day, professors don’t yell at you for things like having a cell phone out or using your laptop in class. It’s hard to pace myself in class so that when I decide to go on the internet for a minute to help regain my concentration, I don’t end up just looking at random websites until the class ends.

I think the first year in college will change me by making me more responsible for myself. Nobody is telling me what to do, so I just have to do it on my own.

hey my name is albert azar. im 18 and i live in brooklyn, ny. so far my freshman year has been going pretty well but im starting to get nervous about a couple of things. first im realizing that most of what we are being tested on in our tests are not even covered in the classroom. the teachers make us go home and read around 5o pages in 2 days on material that we didnt discuss in class nor will we ever. people told me that college is hard but at this point it has nothing to do with college, its about the work itself. scool is suppose to be a place where you learn things, but so far all ive seen is that the school hands us textbooks and say read!. i dnt see y i need to go to colllege for that. im pretty sure i can buy a textbook all on my own if i really wanted to learn about the subject. the second thing is that being jewish and very religious, i am finding it difficult to find places to eat. ive checked the food they have in the cafeteria and it doesnt exactly meet my requirements. in addition to that, i have found that the closest restaurant that i can eat at is approximately 30 minutes away on foot which is a pain. i am currently speaking to the head rabbi at the hillel group to see if anything can be done. the third thing that bothers me is that when the teachers give an assignment to do for hw or during class, they dont explain how they would like it done. they do however yell at you when you hand in your work and it is not in the form that they want. i mean come on! if your not going to tell us what you want then how are we suppose to give it to you!? its like someone saying they dnt no what they want for a birthday present and then when you get them something they dont like, they complain!

so far, the diferences between college and high school would have to be everything!

lets start with the size. the size of my high school would probably be able to fit into the vertical campus building with plenty of room to spare. the students in my highschool were only syrian sephardic jews from my community but baruch is the most diverse school in america! ive met so many people from different parts of the world, its incredible! also probably the bigest difference would have to be the teachers and principals from my high school. they were always on top of me for every stupid little thing that i did wrong and made school a bad experience for me because they didnt let me enjoy it. but in college, no one is folowing e around and barking orders at me. its a good freedom but it comes at a price. in high school, if i was failing or doing badly, the teacher would talk to me after class to tell me to do better or call my parents. but in college, they couldnt care less how well or how bad im doing.

i think my first year at college will teach me to be a more responsible person and point me in the direction of my future