Author Archives: Jaquevia Bruney

Baruch College has been a lot more than I ever thought or dreamed of. I was tired of the slow pace living in high school, seeing the same faces every day, waking up and going to bed at the same time every day for 10 months out of the year. I was glad to find myself in the city, yeah my routine isn’t as predictable as I thought it would be, something happens everyday, good or bad, so it keeps me on my toes. Baruch definitely broke down my ego though, in high school, I never study and still got good grades. For the first time, I’ve had to study and I’m still getting the hang of it, but its made me realize I’m not as smart as I thought it was, and even if I was, I’d still need to study to do as well as I aim to. What didn’t live out to my expectation was the arts, I didn’t find a club to join cause there wasn’t anything that interested me, everything was divided out by race, job opportunities, learning life skills, or a general interest like music. I was also disappointed when I realized how uncreative the people in the school are, I guess that comes with being a business school but it still was a shock. The professors were beyond my expectations. Everyone made colleges to be strict, grumpy and hard to relate to, they were wrong. I think that I did good, I wasn’t as focused as I should have been, but I think I needed time to get adjusted and figure stuff out on my own. However, I doubt that I will get anything less than a B- in my classes, and that encourages me that I can do EVEN better next semester if I just apply myself more, work on study habits, and learn from the mistakes I made this semester. I wouldn’t do anything differently. I believe happens for a reason, and I learned something new everyday. I also think I grew as a people, mostly for the better, and I am more driven now than I was before. Not to mention, I meet some great people and go to try new things. My FRO was amazing, the instructor and peer mentor included and it going to be weird next semester on Tuesdays without it. Overall, I am more certain of myself, and I know what I need to work on to become a better all around person and student, and I’m happy that I chose to go to Baruch.

Every year, exactly a month after my birthday my mom is exactly seventeen years older than me. So, your mom has you as a teenager and immediately you’re a statistic. There’s NO possible way, you can have a good and successful life, you’re going to be dumb, barely make it through high school, and even have to have been pregnant at least once before you get out of high school. Of course, when I was a kid, none of this fazed me, and then somewhere around the age of eight I started to realize how people saw me. I can still remember this one time, I was 12 when my aunt saw me with a guy in my neighborhood. I went home and my mom said me what I had done that day, I told her I was went with my friend to 7/11 and she told me be careful what you do and hat you see because apparently some members of my family automatically assumed I was having sex with him. How wonderful. Cause I’m not just 12 years old right? But still, much to their dismay, I graduated from high school in the top percentage of my class, and didn’t get pregnant. But still, on my 18^th birthday I was on the phone with my grandmother, and she asked me if my mom was back in school and said yeah, and she says to me, “oh that’s good at least she’ll be providing you with motivation to go to school. “And I was so shocked; it seemed no matter what I did, I would always be a statistic, doomed for failure. As if, all that I accomplished up until that point, never happen. But its okay, because I’m going to continue to prove them wrong and all their ignorance is just more fuel for my own self-motivation.