Freshman Seminar 2011: CFA

For starters, I’ve had envisions about being
enrolled into Baruch since my sophomore year in high school. Then is when I realized
that I had a passion for numbers and analyzing different figures, and a career
as a financially analyst would be most suitable for me. I even began to manage
my mother’s finances during my senior year and she ended up saving about 20%
more ironically. So since that point I knew that if I wanted any chance at
gradually getting into that field, I would have to get excepted into Baruch’s
tough 23% annual acceptance rate. Since Baruch is a CUNY school, one, the tuition
was affordable and I wouldn’t have to take out any loans, and two, it’s one of
the most prestigious business schools in the city. So it was a win-win
situation.

Most of my concerns about freshman year at Baruch it
to readjust myself to a point where I’m able to succeed. There’s no doubt that
college is far different than high school, and what I was doing to maintain a
high grade point average in high school will cause me to fail in college.
Therefore, time management is one large adjustment, and is even more difficult
since my job is very time consuming. Study habits are also a major adjustments
that has. In high school I never had to study for a test or put much into an
essay to receive an A for the most part, but now I’m spending more time in the
library than I have in my entire high school career. Lastly, networking would
be an adjustment I would have to make. I know that networking is a significant role
in the business world, and I have to get out of my ways where I feel I can do
everything on my own.

Ultimately, what I’m trying
to get out of Baruch this year is maturity, and bringing me a few steps closer
to who I’m trying to be, both as a young man and career wise. Like I stated I have
no clue on who I am, but I do know where I’m trying to go, and hopefully I’ll
get to that point over the next few years.

I am Sadaf Zaheer. It’s hard for me to start talking to someone, but once I get to know someone I am very talkative. And at times, it’s really hard for to stop talking. I also love to laugh, and I do at most random things, and then like hours later when I think of it again.

One of my main goals for this semester/year is to establish a major. I am mostly sure I want to go into a business related career but am not sure about what it is yet. So far I really like Baruch; it’s not much different form high school though. But that’s because we’re all in blocks and basically have class with the same people. It’s nice to have a group of friends that motivate you to study and get your work done; which I must say I have found at Baruch. Classes aren’t a big problem yet, but the work load has been increasing lately. It’s enough to keep my social life to a minimum which is unfortunate considering I am not used to it yet.

I tend to procrastinate a lot of the time and that seems to be a major problem right now. In high school assignments could always be done last minute but not in college. I feel like I am constantly checking my planner for when things are due, but it doesn’t register in my head that have to done until the day before, another thing I have to really work on; not letting myself put everything off until the last minute.

As I mentioned before, it’s hard for me to approach people and start a conversation with someone that I don’t really know. I have to become more social and not be afraid to approach people. I am hoping I can change this aspect of myself and make it easier for myself to approach new people.

For many people, it takes a lifetime to figure out who they are in this world. However, I Danielle Troyano, at 18 years old, have a pretty good idea of who I am and who I am slowly becoming. I am a dancer. This is who I am, this is who I always hope to be. Dancing has shaped me into the strong, independent and driven person that I am today. I can confidently say that if it weren’t for my serious committment to ballet, I am not too sure that I would know my meaning in this world.  My whole life everybody has known me as “the dancer.” It always makes me think, if I never took that first ballet class when I was 4, who would I be? Would I even have a meaning in this world? This is a question that will forever linger in my mind. However all of this aside, i’d also hope to say that I am a good person with a good heart. Seeing someone else smile brings a lot more joy than my own happiness.

I guess the point of this blog is to be honest with my self and my peers. Therefore, i’m not too sure how I feel about Baruch yet. In all honestly, I chose Baruch because I wanted to attend college in NYC to stay with my ballet coach, and Baruch is cheap and a wonderful education. I know it has only been a month, but I have not been able to find my niche yet. I live in the dorms which is nice, but I mean when I come to baruch at 8am every morning, I feel very alone. This is definitey something that I hope gets better as the year goes on. I promise everyone I don’t bite! I’m not too sure why many people don’t talk to me. Perhaps my classes are just way too early and everyone is just too tired! I don’t want people to label negatively just because I rush out of Baruch everyday at 12 to get to ballet. I am just as committed to my academics as i am to ballet and it will always be that way. So far, the work load hasn’t been too crazy for me, I really hope it stays this way. That would definitely be my worst fear, not being able to balance both ends of the spectrum.

So far, Baruch appears to be very similar to high school. It has so many cliques, and I feel as if everybody knows eachother prior to coming to Baruch. I feel that once I find my own clique, everything will become a lot easier. I was able to slide my way through high school having fun and not doing much work, but I know that this can not be the case in college. I want to do well and make my parents and myself proud.I know that Baruch is the stepping stone to a bright future. It is definitely going to be a long and hard road balancing both a potential dance career and a journalism career, but I am sure that I can handle it. I hope that this first year at Baruch College teaches me the importance of time managment and how to reach that level of professionalism that I’ll need to be very successful in every aspect of life.

My name is Helen Ho. I recently turned 18, and I’ve been living in Manhattan for all my life. I came to Baruch because it’s a convenient distance from my house on 107th street. I don’t intend to have any association with anything business related. I hate everything about it, especially the knee length skirts and awkward high heels I see students wearing sometimes. I think I identify myself more with art rather than anything else. Except i’m not an artist because I don’t like it when people call themselves that. And i’m not too good at it either.

My top 3 concerns about freshman year at Baruch would be the incredibly unnecessary amount of work that needs to be done. It’s like I can never get a break anymore, there’s always more work to do. And i’m a pretty big slacker so thats an even bigger problem. Another concern I have is picking a major that i’m passionate about and that i’ll be dedicated to trying hard. The third concern I have is binge eating and being morbidly obese. I love indian food, and conveniently enough our school is next to little india. L0v3ly.

Baruch is already really different than my high school. An obvious reason is the radical size change. My graduating class consisted about 150 students, and now I have 500 classmates in my Psychology class. Baruch is also different because of the workload. I passed with a very low gpa but I also didn’t do any work and came to class late or skipped almost every day. Now I have to be responsible and independent or else the consequences will be much more severe.

I don’t really think Baruch will change me that much, I think i’ll just mature on my own. Everything comes naturally, and being in a new environment is scary but I don’t think i’ll be dramatically effected.

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.

Who do I think I am? Well I for one am human, a female human to be exact. Or at least I hope I am because that’s that I’ve been telling myself all these years. If I were to go any further than that then I really wouldn’t have an answer. When I think I know who I am, I end up surprising myself with a brand new aspect of myself (and I wouldn’t say all of it is good). Yet I take it in stride and accept my flaws, although some can be harder to accept than others. I wouldn’t say I’m a good person but I wouldn’t say I’m a bad person either. I try to be a good person and as to whether I succeed or not, I can only say occasionally. So as of now and maybe later in the future, I can only say I am who I am and will refuse to specify.

At Baruch I’m afraid that I’m going to fail my classes no matter how hard I try because it just won’t process correctly in my head. If that is the case than I can only hope to endure those classes and pass, even if it’s cutting it close. I’m also concerned as to whether I’m making the right choices in my life. I wouldn’t want to chase after something and later find out it’s something I never really wanted in the first place.

Currently I find Baruch to be pretty similar to high school. We all attend class then go home or meet friends and just in general mind our own business. But it’s definitely different from high school in terms of management. I’m expected to manage everything by myself whether its tests and papers or making sure I’m taking the necessary classes to graduate. It’s not something I’m quite used to but I’m a pretty organized person so I figure it’s something I can get adhere to quickly. I also have to take my classes seriously and devote time to study. I didn’t have to study in high school and still get away with decent grades but I definitely have to change my habits now.

Hopefully by the end of my first year I’ll have a clue as to where I’m going with my life and if I’m going down the right path. This is probably a bit of a stretch for me but I hope I’ll stop procrastinating by the end of the year too. If I can get over that hurdle, I’m ready to go for anything.

My name is David Haddad and I am very excited to be a part of Baruch College. I am the oldest child in my family so my role is to set a good example for my younger siblings. I am eighteen years old and I am enjoying myself in Baruch College. I have three major concerns here at Baruch College that I want to share with everyone. My first concern is that I am not sure what I want to major in. Although many family members and friends have told me not to worry about it because it will come to me soon enough I still worry. Secondly, I am a little nervous for my first tests in every subject because I don’t really know what to expect. Last but not least, I can’t find a restaurant where I really enjoy the food.

On a different note, the commute is definitely one of the things that made my college experience different from my high school experience. In high school I took City Bus for five minutes every day to reach my destination but to get to Baruch I have to take the Subway and make a transfer. This takes me around one hour per way to get to Baruch College. I don’t mind the commute so much because I find stuff to do on the subway like read books, do homework, or listen to music on my IPod. I like all my classes so far but Psychology and Freshman Seminar top the list because they are both very interesting classes.

I think that I will calmer after I complete my first semester at Baruch because I will know my way around more and I will have more of an understanding of what college life is. As for now I am still trying to figure out certain things so hopefully by next the next Blog post I will have more answers.

Who am I? I am currently a freshman at Baruch College. I was a procrastinator and lazy person, but I am trying to change all of that now. I am pretty much the normal 17 year old guy. But what makes me different? First of all, I am not the mainstream music person, although I do listen to some top 100 songs. I’m a person that laughs a lot, even at the most random things. However I can be a very hard worker and I am trying to excel while I go through 4 years of college.

Um, one of my concerns in college is time management. I only take one train here, but I do have to walk from my house to the train station and from 6th Ave to Lexington. And since I am not a New Yorker, I noticed that I walk really slow. So I have to leave early, especially on Wednesdays and Fridays and buy my breakfast and make it before 9. Also, I have to keep track with homework. Without a planner, I end up forgetting everything and missing the most important stuff. My last concern is finding some good place to eat and something to do on Tuesdays because there is no such thing as a dollar menu in New York and sometimes I have nothing to do for 3 hours on my break.

High School is very different from College. In high school, i had different classes with different people, but now in college I have blocks with the same people. I don’t mind, because I think that its Baruch’s way of telling you to join a club or sport as a way of making new friends, and keeping your block friends so you have someone to help you as they have many classes with you. Lastly, in high school, people weren’t half as smart as the people in Baruch, and now in Baruch I have people that know how to argue and think before they speak.(For most people in Baruch LOL)

College will change me because in high school I barely was active in school and did almost nothing. Now in college, i joined a club and studied more, and I know my way through New York. As the 4 years pass, I will try to become a better, smarter, hard-working person.

I don’t know why but when I first read the task I kept thinking of the song Jar of Hearts.  Did anyone else think of that?

Anyway lets just get right to the point.  Who do I think I am?  In all honesty I’m not entirely sure of who I am.  I try to be a good person and to do good things but the question of who I am what I want to be… it’s kind of hard to answer.  I know that I’m working towards reaching a point in my life but I’m not even sure if I want to reach there.  And I don’t really know if I’ll ever know who I am exactly because I’m changing every day.

Right now at Baruch Im most afraid of trying as hard as I can and still failing.  Because where can I go from there?  Next I guess I would be afraid of learning and majoring in a career only to find that I either hate it or I’m not able to get a job.  And lastly, I’m afraid of not being true to myself.  To lose a part of myself in order to reach my dreams or to compromise my morals to get what I want or at least what I think I want.

In all honesty I feel like Baruch is a lot like high school.  Everyone goes home right after school unless they’re  in a club and it doesn’t feel like that much of a transition from high school.  Blocks make its kind of hard to meet anyone outside of your block and it almost feels like how in middle school we were placed into “teams” of people.  I mean we do have large lecture hall classes but other than that classes feel almost the same.  I really hope that this will change but sometimes when someone asks me whether or not I like Baruch I really have no idea what I should say.  Oddly enough the tests I have taken so far were a lot easier than some of the tests I took in high school but that might be because I actually studied for them this time.  >_<

I definitely want to change my study habits in college and from what I heard people grow a lot in college so I hope I can be more mature and maybe a little bit more independent.  I’m excited for what college and living in New York city can do to me but I’m just a little bit scared that I won’t grow.  I want to be thrown outside of my comfort zone and challenged.  I don’t want college to feel like high school or I would have gone to community college.