DTE: Surviving College 101

My first semester in Baruch College is almost over and the only thing left is to review for finals. Throughout the first semester, the biggest challenge is to overcome my laziness. Whenever my teacher have assigned some long readings or asked me to write some paper, my laziness would always say to me “you still have tomorrow to finish them”. Although I have eventually finished most of the works on time, each day I went to bed later and later. It makes me realize that time management is so important in College and laziness must be changed. Otherwise I won’t be able to have any free time to spend with my friends. In September I was expecting to speak up in class and to make more foreign friends; now I’m working on it. I believe that in order to get more friends other than Chinese, I have to get use to speak English with my parents and even with my Chinese friends. The fact is that I haven’t done my best in the first semester. If I could retake this semester, I believe I would have done things differently with a better attitude. Now finals are coming and what I should is to study really hard and to avoid getting lazy again. After this semester I have realized what it means to be a college student, and I look forward to my next semester and hope to make improvements everyday.

For my community service, I volunteered for a program called “Feed My Starving Children”. It is a program to help starving children by packing up foods for them and send to poor areas to save their life. It was a raining day. the weather didn’t make me feel depressed, because I was going to help out many children. Because of subway delays, we were late so when we arrived at there, many volunteers already started the packing. We quickly moved to our area and carefully listened to the instructions. Before we have started, we were asked to wear plastic caps and gloves to prevent hair or nails from mixing with the food. We need to fill out each pack with one spoon of dried vegetables, one spoon of corn flour (I guess), and one cup of rice and the weight should be between 380 to 400 gram. The process took six people to do: one for rice filling, one for vegetable filling, one for corn filling, one for bag holding, one for weighing, and one for sealing up the pack.

We felt excited about it and thought it will be pretty easy. I was responsible for weighing the pack. However, we started the work and found that it was not that easy: people who were doing the filling couldn’t accurately control the amount of the food; the bag sometimes didn’t fit to the bottom of the funnel; and weighed packs sometimes spilled out on the table. Gradually, we found a pattern and we were getting smooth and we came out to be pretty efficient. Another person put the completed packs into a box and once the box was full, all of us cried out some words to notice the staffs that we were done with one box. We continued this work for about two hours. When the staffs called times up, we looked at out outcome and noticed that with a limit amount of time, we already have packed eight boxes. As a whole, in that afternoon there were almost two hundred boxes were packed and were ready to be sent. I appreciate this meaningful experience because it helped many starving children and gave them hope in life.

It is a great pleasure for me to go to Rubin Museum of Art. This museum have the largest Western collection of religious art from cultures of the Himalayan mountain range, the birthplace of Buddhism. As a Buddhist, I felt so excited about it and enjoyed this meaningful experience. Among all there are some pieces left me deep impressions. The piece “Samvara in union with Vajrayogini” is a gilt copper statue that from Tibet, circle 1400. In the piece “Samvara in union with Vajrayogini”, there is a Buddha embraced by two divine couple dragon and looks like wearing scarves on. The whole piece is bronze and gilt copper. It looks shining in the window under the light. It also has many pearls on the Buddha. The jewelry and pearls are big and heavy perhaps to represent wealth and happiness. In the piece, Samvara is the meditational god of the Kagyu schools and Tibet people. The great art and shape of the Buddha reflected the art attainment and talent of the artist of this statue.

In my opinion, this piece of Buddha statue is developing a feeling of wealth and happiness because of the heavy and big jewelry which were wearing on the Buddha. The Buddha also embraced by dragon which means the people of the Tibet would also be blessed by the Buddha. The statue also is bronze and gilt copper. The shinning color tone also shows that this Buddha is representing a good life. In this piece, the posture of the Buddha is bending his knee in one side and smiling looking at the dragon. It also shows the power and wealth that the Buddha has. Because of this Buddha is representing wealth and happiness. In my opinion, the function of this Buddha is for the Tibet people to pray for good life. The people of Tibet built this piece of art and people could come to pray every time if any people feeling bad of their life. This Buddha also represents power because of the dragon on its body. Therefore, People may go to pray for power in real life also and have a good life.

The piece “Diverse forms of Mahakala and other protectors” during central Tibet, Gelugpa school 1805 to 1820, there is many deities trying to protecting some deities. In this painting, numerous deities established a scene of grandness and shake. The fire on the deities’ body is shining and looks like moving to somewhere. The painting used a dark color tone to illustrate the power and threating of those deities. The deities in this painting all have the same skin color and fire. This seemed to unite and protect for the same purpose. The content of this painting said, “The painting is dedicated to nine wrathful deities held prominently in the Gelugpa School.” Therefore, it told us its nine powerful protectors in this painting. Every protector in this painting seem has its own power and story could be told by other art sculptures.

Many people have faced different challenges and experienced different things when they are adapting a culture unlike their home culture. In my opinion, these experiences are the best proofs for my growth. The first turning point in my life occurred when I just came to America. The changes of school environment and educational model were the biggest challenge I was facing. I found that in American culture, students are not required to stand up to speak and to put their hands in their back; homework is much easier lesser than that in China; Students’ after-school life is so relaxed and the way of teaching is so different.

Although these differences brought me a great degree of comfort, this comfortable life almost dragged me into a self-enclosed life. Since the stressed Chinese learning environment was replaced by the relaxed American learning environment, I almost lost my urge for improvement. The change in life made me not so eager to learn new things and to make friends; I was pushing myself toward the pleasureless robot’s life. Gradually, I became very introverted and only talked to my several Chinese friends. Even after school, I rarely went out with my friends, but rather stayed at home addicted to computer games. Such distorted comfort stole everything from me, including my fighting spirit and goals.

This kind of life continued until I was in high school. In high school, its environment forced me to face and integrate into American society. Since that time, I have made some friendly and extroverted American friends and have gradually stepped out of my previous life. From them, I have learned the American ways of humor and life and have found the way of life I appreciated. I also have met some people who recently came to America just like me; some of them were very outstanding and motivated. Therefore, I frequently compared myself to them and used them as my goal. However, I have encountered a bottleneck: Even though I have tried my best, since I had wasted too much time on games, there was still a big gap between me and them. I knew that a good environment is so important for me, so I have tried hard to enter their social cycle. Over time, I have finally found my own way of life, which has become my second turning point in life.

From then on, I choose to exercise and to take part in volunteer work during my free time. Because of this, I gradually come to have a religion and become a Buddhist. At the Buddhist Temple, I have met many experienced people who have been giving me their greatest help. I begin to learn to accept and to integrate into American society, at the same time I find the right concept that would lead me to the next turning point in life. After the second turning point, I have reached a new level of understanding concept of life, which is not to afraid of facing any difficulty. I begin to understand that in order to become a successful person, I must understand my own value and become self-confident. I am grateful to those lonely and painful days, because their presences have helped to achieve who I am now.

My name is Yichen Fang, but I prefer you call me Eason, as some of you may know Eason Chan, a famous Chinese singer. I came to America five years ago and attended both junior high and high school in New York. Before I came here, i used to live in Shanghai, a city where i have met many good friends during my childhood. My first impression on New York was that the air in New York smelled so much better than that in Shanghai. I love java, java not as the Indonesian island, but as the computer programming language. It makes me think over how computer and software are programmed and how they actually work. It helps me realize that humans are the geniuses who make all of these work properly, including what I’m doing right now. For my freshman year in Baruch College, I expect to build up a larger friends cycle, to learn to manage my valuable time, and to make significant change in my personality. In Baruch College, I expect to make more friends, especially friends from other countries. I used to have a very shy personality, therefore I didn’t make enough friends since I came to New York. Another reason is that I don’t speak English very well. When I first attended to junior high school, I only talked to Chinese people because I am not courageous enough to speak to other people. But now I am a College student and that must be changed. While I am still improving my English skills, I will talk to more people and participate more frequently in class. In high school, I didn’t have many writing assignments to do. It helped me develope a degree of laziness throughout my high school years. I know that College is much harder than high school and students must have positive attitudes in order to improve my reading and writing skills. Time management is really important in College, especially when I have part-time job. My first year will be pretty tough but I expect it to be this way. Bill Gates once said that “To be a good professional engineer, always start to study late for exams because it teaches you how to manage time and tackle emergencies”. I probably won’t study my exams really late, but the pressure is similar to what I am experiencing. Changing my laziness is no that hard, but I have to work on it, especially on time management. I look forward to my College life and expect to see good results.

my first semester at baruch was definitely memorable. my entire block got really close with each other, and we created a bond that cannot be broken. The whole transition from high school to college went really smoothly. I definitely enjoy college life better than high school life because of the freedom, but I know that college is definitely tougher academic-wise. I regret a lot of things i have done during this semester but it seems a little too private to mention on this blog post lol. I met the girl of my dreams in college as well, so i would like to thank baruch for giving me the oppurtunity to meet her and to find the one that makes me happy =]. I dont think ive changed at all during the whole first semester though. In high school ive always been the type of guy to have a big sense of humor and was really caring, and in college, i’m still the same Austin. I love to bring happiness and joy towards the people that are around me. I struggled a lot in the beginning of the semester because of a fraturnity, but ever since leaving that kind of life, ive been doing a lot better in school, and i havent looked back since. So my grades are starting to pick up a lot and i couldnt be happier. I’ve been working really hard at work also, harder than i usually work, because ive been wanting to obtain a promotion. Ive worked at the same place for about 4 years now, and am looking to expand and to achieve a higher status. I had fun memories being in this freshman seminar class also, and i definitely wont forget it.

So, I went to the Small Talk 2 workshop.  For the most part it had to do with small talk that we as future employees would engage in with our coworkers, managers, bosses or possibly, CEO’s.  This workshop was beneficial in the fact that it emphasized the idea that small talk is in essence, small, and as a result is not meant to be a full blown conversation.  It is simply meant to possibly exchange a few thoughts, show your personality and get your name out there.  The fact that you have the courage to engage in small talk shows that you are outgoing and not afraid.  Small talk is something that I typically undertake in on a day to day basis, so I feel that this workshop gave me valuable pointers on how to really use it in a business environnment.  Overall, the workshop was valuable.

When heard we have to do community service for the freshman seminar, I immediately chose Beijing Chinese School as a place to do my service. I had been there for 1 year to teach little kids Chinese. Most of them were Asian kids who are born in U.S. I enjoyed being there to teach them the language that I speak fluently. Another reason was that I can learn to be more patient when teaching these kids. Impatience is always been my weakness; therefore, the experience of teaching children helped me to overcome the impatience. I was amazed by how fast children absorb the knowledge that we teach them. They are like sponges that absorb anything. As a result, the education for children is very important and that was why I chose to volunteer at Beijing Chinese School. Even though children are annoying sometimes, I still like to play with them because of their innocence. When I finished my day at Beijing Chinese School, there was one girl in my class asked me how to write my name in Chinese. After few minutes, she handed me a paper with her name and my name on it. I suddenly felt what I’ve done that day was worthy it. Last but not least, it was a great experience to teach children.

First semester is nearly complete except for the finals. I think right now my situation is really terrible because obviously I have not yet prepared for anything since I’m such a stupid procrastinator.  If you ask me how I have changed since I started college I would say I did not change at all as my procrastination routine is just inborn. I don’t know why I cannot change that. I did not have much expectations since the beginning. I knew that I would just mess up with everything. If I could do it again I might probably would not change anything since the thing that I actually have to change is my bad routine. Indeed I have to fix my mind and really fix myself. Motivation was gone since.. I dunno when,  but I’m sure it was before college. My mind is getting more completed and there are so many problems other than school. There are lots to fix and everything just annoys me so much. Perhaps I am being a little bit cynical here. (or because I don’t know what to write?) Anyway I hope that everything will be better when the second semester starts. I just could not wait for the long holiday. I need a break to deal with the problems, and deal with myself. So yea, good luck to everyone.

The third workshop that I went is called Email Excellence. It was a lecture about writing proper emails. It was a very interesting and impressive workshop indeed. First of all I think the speaker is really professional and articulate. He prepared some useful notes for us and during his talk, he made me understand why people should care about writing proper emails, although most of them do not. Communication does not just limit to face-to-face nowadays, there are so many more technologies that facilities business and daily conversations, email is one of  the most important ones. When a person send an email to someone, the receiver usually judges the writer based on his/her contents in the email if they never seen each other. This makes sending proper email critical because when we seek for job opportunities we usually do it via email. If the procedure is not done correctly we might end up losing the chance. The speaker not only taught us how we should write specifically in an email, but also how to name a proper subject for the email. Email is a serious business and it mat entail serious risk. I gained pretty much knowledge from this meaningful workshop and I hope that other students can attend this workshop if there’s a chance.