Author Archives: wasim.salim

My first semester at Baruch has gone pretty well. After realizing that I could get college credit for both pre-calc and calculus, I dropped my pre-calc class. Now on thursdays I start school at 2:30 which have made me very happy. In my other classes I am doing extremely well. The only class that has been giving me trouble is Art history. I think its because of all the memorization that is involved with that class. Overall, lecture classes don’t appeal to me. I get bored easily and I find my self falling asleep. Maybe its because my professors in my lecture classes are not that interesting.

Going into my second semester in Baruch I look forward to meeting new people and getting more involved. I also look forward to building a stronger resume. Socially, I thought that I may suffer at Baruch because of its quality of being a commuter school, but so far this has not been the case. Contrary, my social life has gotten better because of Baruch. I have made a few friends in freshman seminar and outside of freshman seminar. Although our freshman seminar class is coming to a close I am confident that most of us will keep in contact because of that fabulous Facebook group that we created.

Baruch has definitely changed me. I have become a more independent person because of college. My communication skills have especially been improved because of Baruch. The constant social obligations forced me to become a better speaker. Now, I have become more responsible because I have to follow schedules. I have never used the calendar application on my phone so much before Baruch. Baruch is a great school and right now I really like it.

Hey professor I’m having trouble with a specific homework problem. I know you went over the problem in class but my notes aren’t very clear. Can you tell me how to derive the derivative of #4b in the main textbook.

-Wasim Salim

The first time I smoked pot was when I was 16. At first I had been very adamant about not smoking weed. In fact, I thought people who smoked were stupid. But, because of my schools small size everyone became very close to one another. And so the peer pressure got to me and I gave in to smoking pot. The first time I did it I loved it and from then on I kept on doing it. At first is was once a week, but then it started to become twice a week and eventually I was at the point where I was smoking 3-4 times a week. The effects were terrible. My grades were getting mediocre and I was barely keeping up with assignments. Life at home was becoming stagnant. I communicated with no one in my family. It came to a point where I wasn’t even saying good morning or see you later when I was entering and leaving the house. I had lost interest in my family and they had lost interest in me.

It wasn’t until 12th grade when I began to change. It took a lot for me to change though. The thing that changed me was getting in trouble on my senior trip. During senior trip a few friends and I decided to smoke pot and my chaperones noticed that we were high. My parents had to come in and I was basically kicked out out of senior trip. Thats when I started to change. Immediately after  the incident I stopped smoking for about a month and I began hanging out with new people and doing different things. I immersed myself in other activities like blog writing, exercising, reading books, and watching movies.

Don’t get me wrong though, I still love pot. And I didn’t quit forever. I just cooled down. I got over the “pothead” life style and just began casually smoking. The key to enjoying things like pot, alcohol and what ever else people like to use, is to exhibit self control. If you can’t control yourself then you  will fall victim to addiction. Always remember there are people who have never ‘used’ at all. Just think about what some of these people might do for fun and try to inject the same activities into your life. Self control will build it self as you learn about other things to do in your leisure time.