Author Archives: Nafyal

My first year at Baruch has been rather interesting. I’ve made new friends, have a completely different lifestyle, and have so much more homework. It’s crazy the amount of work high school teachers expect you to do and how much college professors want you to do. That being said – I’ve lost many of my close friends, which kinda sucks with this part of my life. They’ve all moved on to different colleges and other sorts of things so we have just lost contact. I haven’t talked to my best friend from middle school and high school in many months. We just have completely different lives that we lead now. Most recently, I’ve heard from another friend that he went to college for awhile then dropped out. I was disappointed to hear that, but for some reason I didn’t bother to contact him and ask why – I figured it’d be awkward. It’s funny because we always told each other that people lose friends all the time and make new ones but that wouldn’t happen to us. It was that way for awhile, but it obviously hasn’t lasted. We told each other we’d finish school no matter what – but he has already dropped out. He would always share his deepest secrets with me and vice versa, and now I don’t even know how he’s been the past couple of months and haven’t dared to ask. I guess the harsh reality is that people always lose the ones close to them for no apparent reason – it just happens. People get occupied with certain things in their lives and just move on to different endeavors. It hurts to think about it, but I guess that’s how life works.

I’m not sure what I’d categorize myself to be. I don’t think anyone can. I guess I’m primarily a procrastinator. I find myself putting tasks that I engage in until the last minute. In fact, I told myself that I would write this blog on Thursday, but here I am on Friday trying to finish it. I’m a bit of a geek too. I really like technology – how things work fascinates me. Especially smartphones. To think that 10-15 years ago phones didn’t have color screens and now phones are pretty much computers that allow you to access your email, browse the web, take HD video, etc is just astonishing. But I’m going off on a tangent.

Many things concern me about my first year at Baruch. The biggest one I have is probably trying to get a good GPA – in the ~3.7 range. In all likelihood, I’m not sure if that’ll be possible, seeing some of my professors (hopefully they don’t read this!) don’t seem to be that great at teaching. I’m pretty sure every student has suffered from having a bad teacher before. Picking the right classes/teachers for next semester is also a big concern. It builds off of the first concern I have. I also have never had to pick classes in my life thus far so it’s an interesting challenge. The last thing that I can think of is making friends. I’ve already made a few since we’re all grouped together in a Learning Community and I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s eerily similar to middle school if anyone remembers that. But this only for one semester – and I doubt I will see the same people in every class ever again. Hopefully I am able to make some more friends next term.

A couple things are already different from my high school experience. Some things seem minuscule on the surface, but they actually do matter in the long term. Things like having to pay for a Metro Card to come to school adds up over time. Paying for food can also get costly. But there are also a couple nice changes. I enjoy having a big break on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s to just relax, take a nap, study, etc. It helps me recoup for the next class as well. Being able to go off campus to do whatever I want when I have a break is also nice. That was never possible before at any level of school.

My first year of college has already changed me. I have had to become more independent, precise, and become better at time management. I hope to gain more knowledge about intricacies of life and actually become a master in the field I have chosen throughout my tenure at Baruch College.