DTE: Surviving College 101

My name is Intesar Ahmed, I was born on May 6^th 1993 and I live in Brooklyn. Hmmm. This is sounding more like an autobiography, any who; it has been an interesting one month in Baruch. No more teachers getting on your case because you are not showing up to class or that you are not doing well. More freedom and less written assignments, we have been given more control. But the question is what have I been doing with this new found freedom? Fooling around of course. Instead of studying or catching up on the reading that I didn’t do or even read stuff in advance, I have been spending most of the time in the game room. I suck at table tennis and the pool table is occupied all the time so I have been playing foosball every day during most of my breaks (and I still suck). In conclusion I hope to change myself and work harder and I hope college will help with this task and possibly I wish to also get better at foosball.

I am Austin Chung, born on May 4th, 1993, 18 years old. English is my first language and surprisingly my chinese is really poor. Because of the fact that I grew up in Brighton Beach which is filled with Russians, and that I was basically the only asian/chinese person in my school when i was young. The word “passion” means a strongly willed emotion towards something. I have passion for when it comes to billards or when it comes to my church. Ive been playing billards since my freshman year in high school so about 4 years and it is a big part of my life. Sure i play a lot of sports like basketball and handball, but i find billards to be the one activity that i truly put 100% focus in and that calms me down when i need to. I love the experience of going to a new pool hall and challenging new people i have never met before. So far in my whole life ive joined 3 tournaments and have won 3 tournments, 1 of them being from my own high school billards tournament. Billards also goes together with my church. In my freshman year in high school, i joined a summer school program for kids as a volunteer. Four years later i’m a head teacher in the children’s department and am still currently working there. I love working with kids. Besides working with the kids i go to church every sunday. I’ve become a soldier at my church which is another way of saying i was baptized. And ive even convinced my Lieutenant, in other words the man who owns the building, to add a pool table and ping pong tables on the 3rd floor at my church. So as of now, i am currently a full time student at Baruch College, work in the after-school program at my church after my classes end, work in the saturday program at my church, have responsibilities on sundays as my duty as a christian, and have the time to teach people tips and ways to practice how to become a better billards person at my church. School/Billards/Church. Thank you.

Dear Diary,

I love how I’m writing to a diary.  I love how I HAVE a diary now. I love Baruch College.  It’s such a great environment.   I love my two hour commute in the morning and then in the evening.  I love the smell of the non-fresh, toxic fumes of New York City.  I love making my way up the working escalators.  I love starting my day with meaningful classes like Music in Civilization and History that will help me in life on my quest to pursue a Finance major.  I love how I took many more CollegeNow business classes in high school whereas; I take no business classes now.  I love how being in this college feels like I’m in 13^th grade.  College is so hard. I have to do homework.  I have to read.  I have to procrastinate all my school work until the morning of classes.  I love how I made hundreds of friends this year that I go out with each weekend and party.  I love how I feel like I’m getting that great education that everyone says Baruch has to offer.  I love how I do not feel like a college student at all.  Most importantly, I love my genius calc professor.

I call this picture "Genius in the Zone"

Whats on my mind is inspiration, many people have ideas that influence them, thus I have my own. What inspires me, of course are ideals and imagination, ones that break the limitations of what can or cannot be done. Through those ideas, advancements and more newer ideas can be formed. I have thought about other-worldy ideas as have other people, but imagination is what gives me inspiration. Albert Einstein once said “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. This quote inspired me, and imagination in general inspires me. Knowledge has its limits, while imagination has none.  All of this is ambiguous, there is no right and wrong answer. Imagination  is ambiguity as there is no limit to the amount of possibilities one can encounter. Some fictional stories have inspired me such as mystery novels(most notably Sherlock Holmes which I have yet to finish reading). Arthur Donan Coyle has created a very inspiring main character (with great perspective and logical thinking skills) in which I would like to ever meet one day. I’ve also got some crazy imaginations on how the world would be like if it was like a video game. Video games are developed with imagination, just like how fiction books are written. I know a good chunk of people wouldn’t like it, but heck I would, and it sure would be nice to have a retry option in reality. =)

I am Amarnath Kapoor i was born in New Delhi. I lived in New Delhi from 2000-2004 then went back to India and then came back to NYC on 4th of July (nice day to come right ??). I love photography and in my spare time read photography books or look at works of other photographers. Well after a month of college i feel things are really better now because now i have made friends and have joined lexicon (the college’s yearbook) and i get to go to most of the events and shoot pictures for the yearbook. I hope to become a professional nature photographer and have the best gallery of wildlife/nature/landscape photos. Even though i know i might not pursue photography as a career but will definitely always pursue it as a hobby. I have added a gallery so you can see some of the shots that i have taken. The only problem was that this is an old camera but anyways get to shoot with a 5d mark II for lexicon so i’m happy 🙂 and i will upgrade pretty soon. I feel after a month of New York I have finally settled in and have started to enjoy my  time at Baruch. Hope college life gets better with every day that passes by

I am Min Kyu Jeong, I was born and raised in South Korea

Speaking of community service in class, there was a one event that I will never forget. When I was in high school, I visited one institution to provide community services. There were many disabled people who were unable to move at all. To make easy for them to eat meal, chef mixed water, meat, grains and vegetables in one bowl. To add extra nutrition and flavor, they added orange juice on bowl and they continuously pour that watery meal to disabled people. It was shocking at first, but I soon understand that they were unable to move and there were too few people to support them. It was unique experience that left me to think about many things. (oh institution was in Queens not in South Korea just in case some might have misunderstanding)

I just got off a stressful weekend. Let’s just say I might have channeled some of that stress when writing this…

I pretty much got no idea what to write. Maybe I can just rant a little bit about this. This might not end well for me, but.. like, what the hell is this? Why is this class necessary again? It’s like having to take music class in a business school—oh wait, I have that too… Absolutely useless. It’s not that I hate anyone in this class. It’s just feels so…. pointless. Meet new people? Get to know one another? That’s honestly not working for me, ‘cause that’s just not who I am. Even before the semester started, I didn’t like the idea of having this Freshman Seminar thing, but I still kept an open mind coming into it. But even now, halfway through the semester, I feel like I haven’t gotten anything out of this. Maybe in the second half of the semester I’ll find something worthwhile out of this. Again, it’s not the people in the class. I just haven’t found a point to it. It’s really just more of a burden than anything else on top of all the other work I have to do for other classes. Maybe it’s for a free credit? At least we didn’t have to pay for this, unlike music class. I’m sure I’m the only one who feels this way about this, and I’m sure this class has its benefits for other people, but I’m just not one of them… I hate too much.

Although my biggest aspiration is to be on SNL, or at least to be a writer for them, I can absolutely guarantee with the utmost confidence this isn’t going to beat Zach Galifianakis’ monologue when he dressed up like Annie and performed his rendition of “Tomorrow”.  College is what it is, but I feel awkward when people ask me about school; I can’t bring myself to say anything other than, “oh, it’s alright” in a less-than-enthusiastic tone.  It seems like everyone loves college, but college and I seem to be going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment.

1 word, 8 letters—Calculus.  Everyone knows I’m obviously more of a linguistics kid, but when a 2000 level calc course is like hieroglyphics to me, something’s wrong.  I’m under the impression that if I stand on my head for a bit and let the blood flow, maybe there will be a big bang neuron explosion and I’ll just turn into Jimmy Neutron or something.  (Sorry for the reference, I’m a 90’s kid I can’t help it).  I know the only solution is to study, but a girl can dream can’t she?

I NEED to learn another language!  Everyone around this school carries on in some ridiculous vernacular; I end up running around as if someone dropped me in the middle of Epcot with a laptop & ID card.  And my favorite part is that I seriously think I can study International Business and compete with these people that are proficient in more languages than I even know exist.  I guess the plus side is that I know I’m in for a rude awakening, so it all comes down to when it’s actually going to happen. Maybe I can be a zamboni operator or an animal psychic, like that Caesar guy.

It’s a big world out there, just waiting to be conquered.  

I am Dada zhang. I was born at  January 10, 1993. I came from china. And in that case English is my second language. Now, I am living in Manhattan and I love my New York City a lot. especially when I living the heart of New York, Manhattan, as you know I was born at a business family. So that is why I spend my college life at Baruch. Also because of that I like doing business a lot. so I need treat myslve more professsional so i can being successful in the future. Also I like to having fan with my friends. I like to go out with people. If I have a holiday i like to invite my friends to travel togeter. I like to do some things to make myself exciting But not drugs. Such as some sports like bungee jumping, climb a mountain that have not been discovered and parachute jumping. I like to do parachute jumping at Las Vegas. But I haven’t done yet. So i am planing to go during next year summer vacation. Seriously I don’t know why I like to doing these crazy things. I also like to listenning some music. that is my monologue.

I was around five or six years old, I’m not quite sure now. I had just moved to my current hometown, and my family wanted to explore. My mom had decided that going to the library would be the best way to develop a child’s mind, and now, I completely agree with her. When she had first brought the idea up, my siblings and I were very skeptical, thinking that being stuck in the library was definitely not the way we should be spending our summers. We thought that summers should be spent at places like Disney World or camping. The idea of being surrounded by musty old books was definitely not that. My mother, having none of our complaints, took it upon herself to drag us to the library and sign us up for its summer camp. Little did I know that it would be a place I’d frequent in upcoming years.

I was ushered into a carpeted room, where there was a windowed divider separating the walkway from the general study tables and the row of computers. Ahead was a pathway to a play area for small children. To the right was the information desk, and further were bookshelves. This is what they call the children’s section. I remember stubbornly standing there, not wanting to take another step. With the look my mom shot me and the sweet smile the librarian shined, I reluctantly went toward the other children.

Even now, I still go to that library. I would hide out in that corner on the second level, the corner that overlooks the children’s section. Sometimes, I would reminisce about those days when I became enthralled by the magic of storytelling and fiction. From genres like folklore to mystery, I tapped into the lives of thousands of characters, and I became increasingly passionate about reading. And now, as I write this blog, I am sitting in that same corner, surrounded by books and overlooking that children’s lair.