DTE: Surviving College 101

 I went to the workshop “Build Confidence! Improving Your Interpersonal Skills.” It was one of the earlier ones, on November 1. There were a lot of upperclassmen, and I was kind of surprised. Some of the people there don’t seem like they really needed this workshop, since they looked pretty confident and talked well. At first I had my expectations pretty low, since there was a power point, and I thought how can someone teach confidence while using a power point. But however I was wrong, the power point was used much. We would stand up in the middle and do some exercises.

We started off with everyone standing in the middle of the room, introducing ourselves while doing a weird movement that involves us putting our hands together like when praying and pointing it at someone else saying “Hi, I am blah blah blah.” By watching each others body language, tone and eye connection, we were able to see whether we were nervous or not. One of the exercise was doing a yawn like movement. We would do a short yawn, and then a longer one while trying to project our yawn. The workshop professor said that it would teach us to project our voice better, and we wouldn’t talk in a monotone or too high/low tone when talking to future interviewers. Another is one where we try to match the movements of our partner, however we first had it wrong since we were talking, and didn’t really do what she was asking. Then when we stopped talking and started to match each others movements, it was really awkward.

I felt the workshop was pretty helpful. I felt kind of awkward in the workshop, but it went by pretty nicely. The workshop professor gave us nice tips on how to do well in a interview. The professor was happy and wasn’t afraid to make a fool of herself to show us how things should be done. I felt like these workshops are pretty useful, and will continue to go if needed.

I went to the workshop called “Writing Winning Resumes”. As name tells it, it was about writing good resume . Career adviser and assistant spent about one hour to tell student about basic guideline for resume. They said that people should include honors, awards, job history, foreign language, education and all the basic stuffs that indicate their worthiness. They also said that people should not include GPA unless it is above 3.0, I think it basically means that people with below 3.0 GPA will have a hard time with getting a decent job.

The workshop was overall so-so. In all honesty, I planned to finish assignments for classes, but I could not do it because the room for the workshop was too small. I paid attention at first, but I got extremely tired because of previous classes, so I did not paid attention that much in the end. Adviser asked people to form a group to answer some questions, I really hated that because I just wanted to sit and listen. Many people left before the workshop ended and some of the people left right after they signed on computer. I also wanted to leave, but I did not want to be rude, so I stayed. One thing that I really disliked about the workshop was it’s environment, many instructor or staffs (I think) continuously came in and left to get something, it was really annoying and prevented me from paying attention.

For out third required workshop for freshman otientation, i went with Timmy, Matt, and Vincent to the second small talk workshop held on December 6th. Since most of us wanted to enter the business world, we figured that learning some small talk skills from a professional would be a good experience. However, the problem with this was that the guy running the workshop wasnt a professional in small talk. Im pretty sure that he said he was an intern, which was a bad sign from the start. (That, and his acne, which made me think that he just started doing this as a job, and his low, semi stuttering voice and how he stumbled over the simplest sentences….but enough of that, lets move on.)  Unsurprisingly (not sure thats a word, but whatever), our fears were confirmed when we were only 10 minutes into the workshop. I was expecting a suave, businessman with a tenor voice to be explaining to us how small talk worked . I would have even been satisfied with a powerpoint presentation (And i simply HATE powerpoint presentations, so you know how bad this thing was.) Instead, i got an intern that obviously didnt know what he was doing. He kept looking at notes to remind himself what he was supposed to be saying, and left most of the talking to us. He would ask an example of what small talk was. Once someone raised there hand and gave a good answer, he would just pause, and wait for someone else to raise their hand. After 30 seconds of akward silence, someone else would, and give the exact same answer worded a bit differently. This process would repeat, and after a while i realized that almost 15 minutes had passed with akward stop and go questions, which the intern obviously wasnt familiar with. (Now im not the best public speaker or discussion leader, but this kind of behavior shows me that this guy has never led a workshop before. Seriously, did he even plan out what he wanted to do in this thing? There were sooooooooooooooooo manyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy akward pauses when he checked his notes on what to do next. I think I couldve led the workshop better in all honesty.) The rest of the people there realized this too. When the workshop started, there were about 20 of us students. When we finally got to our first group activity, 3 or 4 of them simply left with their bags, and never came back. I cant say i blame them. Slowly, more and more people trickled out, coming up with excuses like “i feel sick”  (BS!!! you look fine!!!) or ” i have a 1:20 class” (yea right, i dont think there even is a 1:20 class, but good for them to have the courage to stand up and walk out)”. Eventualy, there was only 10 of us left. Me and my friends, a senior mentor and his mentee who were obligated to sit it out, and a few people that seemed to care a bit more than the average person, or were just too polite to leave.  There was one kid who took matters in his own hands and moved the discussion along. (Thank god for him. Otherwise, i think we still would have been stuck on “what is small talk?” by nightfall. Im tell you, that kid is going places in life. I admire his leadership skills.) However bad the intern was at giving this workshop, i believe he sensed that we wanted to go, and let us out about 20 minutes early. Before he ended it, he asked us if “there was anything we would recommend to improve future workshops.”  Looking around the room, i could tell that most of us were thinking “maybe actually give us a real workshop?!?!?!” but were too polite to say it. Once girl spoke up, saying that there should be a follow up workshop about business small talk. (Good initiative girl, if it werent for you, we’d still be sitting there well past the ending time, avoiding eye contact with each other and wishing we were somewhere else.) I can honestly say that that was the worst workshop that i had ever been to. Also, the only thing that i learned was that you should make a public speaker do these workshops in the future, not interns.

Well, i have taken up enough of your precious time ranting about this workshop, so ill end it here. If you have to do a workshop in the future, i wish you the best of luck in finding one led by a good speaker. If you are Shirley or Amy, please give me an A+ in the class. If you someone that works at baruch, and can make decisions in who does what workshop, please NO MORE INTERNS.

I sincerely thank you for your time.

This workshop provided some information on mentors. Mr. Jorlui, the presenter had informed us that its not just about what you know , but who you know. A mentor is someone that gives guidance to another to those who need it. A mentor goes out of their way to help someone that needs it. It is not a good idea to cancel meetings with mentors, unless it is an emergency. A mentor has gone through everything the mentee hasn’t experience yet, so it is a necessary learning experience for the mentee. It is also known that companies who actively seek people to take specific positions are looking for responses. It’s better if the person replies to the company rather than the company seeking them out. I’ve also been informed about the Baruch career development center and the linkedin website. This workshop has been somewhat informative, I’ve gotten the message that its not just about what you know, but who you know.

This workshop was extremely helpful. I learned how to write my resumes, and they also gave out sample ones I can use as templates. Overall, it was good, despite how long it was. I even met someone new! *thumbs up*

I forgot to register for any of the workshops so instead i am going to write about the workshop that we went to as a class.  If you recall the workshop was about sources and how some sources are not good. I thought the workshop was kind of pointless beause the instructor made a big deal how the news lies sometimes, I rememeber being told this in like third grade. I should hope no one takes what they see on the news as 100 percent true. sure some of it is true but a lot of times they edit clips so it reperesents there political points of views, and nearly all the time they leave out information. By now im sure we all know that both Fox and MSNBC are two of the biggest culprtis for distorting or leaving out valuable information. It’s pretty sad how the instrucor showed how 40 years ago you could actually trust the news but nowadays everything i hear i am skeptical of. I wish we lived in a world were we can actually trust people, todays society is all about making a buck even if that means telling lies as a journalists. Why cant we just go back to the way it use to be?

This workshop was about small talk. More precisely this was the second installment of the small talk workshops provided by STARR career center. Supposedly we were supposed to learn about how to start, sustain, and end small talk as well as the implications of such. Do keep in mind these sessions are free and non profit, i assume, so any bad mouthing i do must be taken lightly and somewhat jokingly.

The workshop went like this: we were seated in a circle, got a handout, went through the handout, did a small excersize, talked some more, the end. The whole thing was unbearably tense and boring for the most part. While i do appreciate that the workshop was free and of good intent it just really lacked any sort of polish or coherence.

The speaker seemed a good man but his demeanor left me with the impression that i did not want to learn anything from him. He sat in the corner of the room where not even half the people remaining could see him (many left throughout the workshop to go to class, i suspect some of them also had their pants spontaneously combust). What kind of speaker sits in the corner while slouched forward? It does not exactly inspire confidence and a feeling of comfortability.

The workshop’s contents lacked depth and insight, i felt the things i ‘learned’ actually weakened what small-talking skills i already had. I found the sections about physical communication nice but the tips like “repeat something interesting they said” or “tell them what they said was interesting” were horrible. It felt less like a small-talk workshop and more of a “how to pretend you are paying attention” workshop.

Perhaps it was my blunder in going to a social skills workshop and not something more concrete like resume writing. I appreciated the workshop but found it of little use and a poor usage of time. It was also brought to my attention that the speaker did not seem very enthusiastic or motivated, perhaps it was just my imagination. He seemed more obligated to keeps us in the room until time was up rather than actually teaching us something. when the session ended about 30 minutes early he insisted we stayed in the room despite us not doing anything productive and simply sitting there.

Bad experience, scarred, no more workshops, is all i can conclude.

So I went to this “Writing Winning Resume” workshop today. Man, did that help A LOT. The bitches there really know what they were talking about. At least as long as I was there.

Unfortunately, I had to leave early due to a practice that I had to go to. I tried to convince my coach to let me miss a little but she was like, “If you miss practice, you better be living on a prayer. Find someone’s hand, and you’ll make it I swear, woah-o. you’re living on a prayer.”

I wasn’t quite sure what she meant but I grabbed my roommate’s, Taylor, hand. He said, “WOAH-O. We’re living on a prayer.” And then he grabbed our other friend’s hand. “WOAH-O, we’re half way there,” Jack replied. We all walked together singing Bon Jovi.

Bitches love Bon Jovi.

All in all, this workshop really helped me a lot to know what I should and should not include in my resume. They gave me a number of sample resumes to base mine off of. It will be very useful as I get older.

I look everything up on Yelp. Looking for a hair salon near Flushing? I can refer you to Sub-Image for a $40 haircut, or BeBe Beauty Salon for 15. Keen on finding the most stylish of thrift stores? AuH2O in East Village sounds like a safe bet, with a rating of 4.5/5 and over 30 reviews. There are even a whopping total of six reviews of the high school I went to. And of course, what would a Yelp search be if it didn’t include food? Chinese hole-in-the-walls, Indian buffet bars, sandwich shops, dollar pizza—whatever restaurant you’re looking for, Yelp can help you find the perfect fit.

But when it came to that mandatory workshop we had to attend for Freshman Seminar, I was left to my own devices with a myriad of choices in front of me and not a clue as to where to begin. I ended up diving in headfirst with no expectations. As I scanned the STARR Career Development website, I realized that all the other workshops—how to ace an interview (or even just to land one, for that matter), job search tips, and even dining etiquette—would never be useful to me if I didn’t have a good resume. Despite the tacky title, I decided that I might as well sign up for Writing Winning Resumes.

The workshop itself was located in a conference room on the second floor, which I’d never been to. After checking in, I began looking through the packet they gave us to accompany the lecture. The speaker was very helpful and walked us through the packet, which presented detailed guides on formatting our resume, what information to include, how to sell our experience and skills in a couple of bullet points, and writing cover letters. We took part in a group exercise that allowed us to make judgment calls on example resumes as if we were the employer. It was refreshing to look at resumewriting from a different perspective, and I found it helpful in critiquing my own resume in the future. Though I did not have my own resume prepared, it is not necessary to bring one, as the workshop is catered towards those who are looking at the basics of resume writing.

Overall, Writing Winning Resumes is informative to those who have no idea where to begin, but for those who have a barebones-idea of resume writing, the workshop gives specific pointers on how to improve their own. Although it was frustrating to follow the powerpoint, as it included a lot of information not found in the packet, I would recommend this workshop to anyone who feels they need to brush up on their resume writing skills.

RESUME BUILDING WORKSHOP
At this workshop I kind of assumed ahead of time that the workshop would be dull but it was interesting. We justified in between which Resume/Coverletter deemed best and why. The class got to ask questions about how certain situations require us to tweak our resumes. Also very important neccessary tips for us to make our resume shine out over the rest. Overall I was astonished about how many little things must be done to produce a correct resume. She told us this rule of thumb that a hiring manager won’t spend more than a minute reviewing resume and cover letter so we must write short and sweet.