My name is Sylvia Kyungrim Lee and I am one of the quietest Asian girls in the class. I moved into the United States after graduating elementary school in Korea and had to attend 6th grade twice as the school system was very different for these two countries. Even though I am very talkative and loud with my Korean friends, I don’t like to speak out loud in front of others in English so much. But I don’t have problem understanding English, so people should talk to me more J
Three main concerns as a freshman at Baruch College are my job, GPA and boyfriend. Since I have been working in Roosevelt Field Mall since my senior year in high school, it is really hard for me to just quit on it, even though it is located very far away from where I am living right now. I am attending a college as a full student during weekdays, and work as a part-timer during weekends, which gives me no time to take rest for myself. Since I am always busy with both the school work and the job, I don’t get much time to meet up with my boyfriend whom I have been dating for about two years now. I am always tired and stressed because of everything that keeps me busy these days, and just wish to have a full day off for myself.
Baruch experiences can be different from my high school experiences as I get to choose which classes I wish to take rather than to take mandatory classes to graduate school. As I started to decide the major that I want to study for the rest of my life, colleges seem to open up good chances for me to experience them beforehand. It is great to know and to talk to other students who are studying for the similar major and exchange good information in more significant ways compared to what I knew in high school.
I think my first year at college is going to change me, and has already changed me, in much significant ways that now I am away from my parents. Even though I thought I was all grown up since I was in 6th grade, my first year in college taught me that there are much more to learn and to experience out there in this world. I have always depended a lot on my parents in doing anything, including making excuses for quitting jobs, or not going to school, but the word “parents” don’t seem to help anymore in making any of the excuses in my life. Few months in college, away from my parents, had really affected me to grow independently and made me realize how young and weak I really was in the previous years.
