Freshman Seminar 2011: CFA

Starbucks Restaurant Review

          What is that amazing smell! A light aroma that fills the air and keeps customers interested in their product. There are many interesting facts about coffee that people have no clue that they even exist. The Coffee bean grows on trees and is the second most traded commodity on earth. Yes that’s right I said second! Once shipped, the beans are roasted at around five hundred degrees Fahrenheit, the same heat temperatures found in a pizza oven. After a few minutes, the bean will pop and double in size. The bean will then pop again in a few minutes and at that pop the bean is done. Why do I tell you this? It’s not because I want to keep you interested (ok maybe it is) but it is because Starbucks is a mega famous coffee store that has an occupation in Baruch College on our second floor. I have been in the store many times before and I can testify that the coffee is delicious. I even have a picture of a delicious cup of coffee!

The atmosphere is very inviting, calm, and relaxing as many people are discussing homework, their weird professors, and how enjoyable Freshman Seminar is (This is not written to suck up)! Starbucks is the go to place for consumers to have a warm and inviting experience. My advice is to someone patronizing this restaurant that he should be bold and wait on the long line to buy his cup of coffee.

I want to talk about fear in general and my specific fears but before I talk about that what is fear? Fear is defined as an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. The key words here are caused by the belief because that implies that if you can train yourself to perceive all situations without fear than in essence fear does not exist. Just an interesting point!

My fears have been fluctuating over the course of this semester and I realized that I am afraid of new experiences, fearing that I might fail or not handle the situation correctly. I was scared of taking the Subway in the beginning of the semester because in the past I have only taken City Bus to school and this was a new experience for me. I was specifically scared of taking the wrong subway and not getting off at the right stops. I resolved this fear by taking the subway every day since this semester has started so now I am comfortable taking the Subway. My current fears are failing exams, getting bad grades, and ultimately not being able to get a job. I need to work on editing goals for myself so that even if my fears come true I can set new goals and hopefully eliminate fear from my life.

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.