Author Archives: Jaye Hernandez

When I always thought of college, I imagined a big campus with a lusciously green field. Well, obviously that’s not Baruch’s image, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be just as good. After I got past that image and thought about the actual qualities of the school, I realized that Baruch is just about everything I’ve wanted. Top rated, fun, in the city, many classes/majors/things to do or choose from. The two complaints that I have was that my course load this year was not very challenging, however, hopefully that will change and that we had to have block schedules instead of picking our own courses.  I think that my schedule would’ve been more challenging had I been able to choose my own courses.  However, since I cannot do that, the only thing I would do differently, was pick a different schedule. Since now I know how “rigorous” the courses are, I would have picked classes that were more challenging or that I wasn’t as interested in.

I found this semester to be relatively easy, I feel as if I flew through the majority of it, I think that most of it, is because as I said, the classes didn’t seem very challenging.  Nonetheless, I don’t want to jinx it before finals, I am hoping to do as well as I’ve been doing is semester.  I made new friends and I had a very interesting semester.  Maybe something else I would change, is joining clubs.  I probably would’ve liked some of the clubs that Baruch has to offer and maybe next semester I will take advantage of them.

I don’t think that I’ve changed since I started college.  Maybe in the sense that I am more independent and I get to make my own decisons.  I am still the same person that I was when started.

Following the majority of monologues, I’m going to talk about my fear.

I’m here at Baruch because it’s a good school, it’s in the heart of the city, it’s my home.  As many already know, Baruch is a business school, and I am here to be an accountant.  Let me be honest, accounting is not what I want to do for the rest of my life, not even close.  I want to be a writer, the next Edgar Allan Poe, the female version that is.  I don’t want to do math, or business, I don’t want to do five years of schooling only to take orders from someone who thinks that they’re better than me.  I want to write.  I want to write poems, short stories, novellas.  I want to be recognized for my creativity and the way people can relate to my work, not because of the way I crunch numbers and how fast I can add 42 to 58 and divide by 10.

And that brings me to my fear.  I want to be recognized, I want to be liked.  But not really as a person, for those of you who are in my classes, I’m usually in the back keeping to myself.  I couldn’t care less about how people view me as a person, but as a writer, as a creator, as an artist, well that’s a different story.  It’s hard to have two different opinions, “Wow, you’re a great writer!  Show me more?” or “This needs a lot of work, this isn’t close to what was needed to be done,” because I never know who to believe.  To have someone pick apart your work and treat you as if you are something off their shoe, it’s depressing.  It doesn’t matter that I’ve won a writing contest, that I’ve been asked to compose a compilation of my poems and short stories, the words of those who degrade my work will forever be in my mind, it’ll be who defines me.

So why am I at Baruch?  Baruch, for the most part, isn’t for creative writers.  If one goes to Baruch, chances are they are going for business, which is what I am doing.  In accounting, someone’s not going to degrade my work, telling me that it’s not creative enough.  It’s simply whether or not my math is correct.   I can take it if someone tells me that I messed up what 20 x 43 is but for someone to tell me that my creative outlet isn’t good enough for them, makes me not want to write anymore.

Who am I?  Well, I’m me.  My name is Patria, but I prefer to go by Jaye.  I am from Brooklyn, NY.  I enjoy writing, listening/playing music; I like reading.  I am an animal lover and I am a proud owner of a beautiful chihuahua named Anna-Belle.  I am a teenager, I am an older sister, I am a daughter, and I am a cousin.  I can continue, but then this would get boring…

My first concern about my first year at Baruch is failing.  I’ve always been told that high school and college are completely different.  That I would have to work ten-times harder and still not pull off the same grades.  These fears became worse, when I was told how fantastic of a school Baruch is.  How top-notch, and how difficult it can be.  How was I supposed to compare?  How am I supposed to get the grades that I want?  Which leads to my second concern…

My second concern would be developing an understanding for the professors.  In high school, everyone is pretty well-knit together, even the teachers.  After spending four years in the same school, one tends to learn the teacher’s habits and what they want from you as a student.  Going back to the horror stories I’ve heard about college, I was always told that the teachers throw everything up on the board, and expect you to get it right away.  And if you don’t… Well, you better.  It’s hard learning new teachers’ styles and what they expect from you, and unlike high school, you only have a few months to understand the teacher, rather than a whole school year.

My third concern, is time management.  I have never really been one to organize my things, let alone my time.  Even though I know that I should, I just can’t seem to find the time or energy to organize what I have to do, and that can get me into quite a bit of trouble.  However, I hope to make that change this year.  Once again, the horror stories never fail.  I want to make sure that I have everything organized and that all my priorities are straight.

As of right now, the major thing that stands out as a difference between high school and college, are the professors.  Each professor has their own writing/teaching style, they all expect something different from you, and that’s different than from what was expected from you in high school.  But regardless, they treat you like human beings, not like little kids, which makes the complicated process of college a little more bearable.  I feel much more comfortable visiting a professor during office hours for help than I ever did in high school.

I think that this first year will make me stronger and more independent.  I’m on my own and I have to learn how to do things for myself.  I will gain a lot of knowledge this year that will be extremely useful in the following colleges years and the rest of the years to come.