Monthly Archives: November 2012

Moving to New York City and attending Baruch has been both a blessing and a curse. New York City is everything I could have imagined it to be. There is always something to do and you learn something new everyday just from walking the streets. From a midwesterners perspective, I was “living the dream.” Likewise, the people at Baruch are awesome. I’ve made lifelong friends and coming to school each day is not a dread because I like the atmostphere. Baruch reminds me a lot of New York City as a whole; there is a lot of diversity and way too many people in a small area. However, moving here and attending Baruch made me realize how much I miss my friends and family in Missouri though and that New York city might not be “living the dream” for me.

I dorm here and live on the 9th floor of my building. I was always told that New York City is the city that never sleeps but I didn’t realize the capacity of this quote until I experienced it….every night. Somehow the noise from people, cars, construction, and emergency vehicles travels up to my room at ALL HOURS OF THE NIGHT. In Missouri, you can literally here the birds chirping in the morning so this was a big change to get used to. Now, I’m pretty sure I can sleep through anything but it was a big adjustment, along with living on my own and moving to a city where I knew nobody. My time at Baruch has caused me to grow up and I would not change my time or experience here for anything.

URL: http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/3329187/college+memes+check+description/

This is the perfect meme to describe my life right now. Although I did have Thanksgiving dinner at the dinner table with my family, I feel like I don’t have time for much with both work and school. I’m an assistant manager at a high volume shoe store in Queens, and the title comes with a lot of responsibility. Because the store I work at is a high volume store, there at least twenty employees and its hard to communicate with everyone and be as effective as possible. It’s time consuming and unfortunately work is taking precedent. I’m adjusting thought, and I know things will get easier after the holiday shopping season is over. All in all, I’m glad I experienced my first semester in college and experienced what so many people out there are experiencing; juggling school and work at the same time. Hopefully next semester will be more successful and a hell of a lot less stressful.

I’m a big believer in “by any means necessary”. I do whatever I need to do to make sure I’m happy and I try to forget the consequences if there are any. I like it that way. I live at home with my parents in Queens, where we moved to after my grandparents moved from Greenpoint, Brooklyn. If you ask me though, I’m from Queens. I’m a true New Yorker, but sadly I still believe in things like train etiquette and minding your own business when no one else is. My brother just turned ten the day before Halloween, and I can’t think of anything on this planet I love more than him. Because we’re pretty far apart in age, I think he often sees me as a “second mom” than he does a fun big sister. I’m the biggest JayZ fan I know; I’ve been to five of his concerts and cry my heart out each and every time. I have no shame in that though, cause its true love. I curse like a sailor, or a truck driver, whichever you prefer, I have tattoos and I have a very low tolerance for BS. Although those factors are unladylike, I do very much so love being a woman in this world. 

My first impressions of Baruch, were not so great. I knew coming into this school I’d be pretty unhappy, especially since Baruch has a reputation of having some of the most miserable students. I figured I’d stay here for the rest of my college years though, because it is so close to my house and cheap. All of the complaints I have, I expected. The only thing I did not know was how horrible and unreliable the elevators and escalators are. Recently there has only been a few elevators working and when you finally get into one your smashed against someone you don’t know. It is very frustrating. Sometimes I like to pretend everyone in the elevator is a cow, it looks that way sometimes. We all get off the elevator slowly and shuffling our feet. I know there are stairs but I do not have the ability to walk up ten flights of stairs. As for classes, they’ll probably get better later. Right now, they’re pretty standard. Maybe when I start studying something I’m interested in it will be more fun.

I found this meme on the Baruch Memes facebook page and had to use it because this is what continuesly happens to me. My time at Baruch so far is going well with the exception of my severe procrastination. I usualy start a paper a few days before it is due, but if I am not in a rush to complete the paper severe procrastination kicks in. My first three months at Baruch has been good, with the exception of my rushing to completel a paper when it is due the next morning or later that day. I enjoy the three hour breaks in between classes and the Fridays off. Sadly it does not make up for how slow the elevators are, nor how the escalators change direction at random points in the day and stop working. Overall I like the school, and enjoy having the ability to go anywhere in the city when i so please. The schools work is not hard, but hard to manage. Everything seems to be pretty straight forward, but like I said before I ave a problem with managing my time. Hopefully that will go away, or at least derease since I tend to need a fire under my ass to get me started and to finish my work. Procrastination is ok but freaking out over a six page paper that is due the next day is definitely not.

I made many important choices before and during my first semester at Baruch College.  What school to attend.  What apartment to live in.  Who to hang out with.  When to study.  When to play.  Many decisions were perhaps less important.  What to eat.  When to sleep.  When to talk.  When to stay silent.  Some decisions are yet unmade.  What major to work on.  To transfer, or not.  What career to pursue.

And I’ve learned independence is beautiful.  Sometimes, a decision can be wrenching:  What would have happened?  Yet life, it seems, is made up of decisions.  Decisions that must be made.  Why?  Because life is not a staircase, it’s an escalator.  If I don’t decide, life will decide for me.  And I will have no one to blame but myself.

So I plan to live life and decide!  Will the decisions always be right?  No.  Is it risky?  Yes.  But risk is a funny thing.  It can’t be avoided:

RISKS

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool,
To weep is to risk being called sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk showing your true self.
To place your ideas and your dreams before the crowd is to risk being called naive.
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure

But risks must be taken, because the greatest risk in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love.
Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited his freedom.
Only the person who risks is truly free.

Often attributed to the poet and thinker, Leo Buscaglia, the real author of this inspirational verse is Janet Rand.

Carpe Diem!

Dickon McPherson

Well to start off with this blog post I saw too many funny memes to choose just one so I chose three.

Now although these images are funny, in many ways they are very true. My first three months at Baruch have been a wave of excitement and a bit of a reality check thus far. Although I’ve been in college before, I was out for a semester and I was not use to all the work I was previously putting in. I almost forgot how important time management is and that is the think I struggle most with. Getting back to my experiences though, I think I have a slight advantage since I already know how much work college entails. A lot of the time, students (including myself) have a preconceived notion that college is so hard because that is what we were taught to think. When I arrived and actually became immersed in my classes I realized that as long as you complete the work asked of you, it flows pretty well. I may seem a bit lazy at times but that does not mean I don’t take the work seriously. The memes are a good representation of what almost all students are thinking and doing at college. I mean college is supposed to be some of the best years of your life so why take them so seriously that you miss out on all the fun? The professor meme is one of the truest ones because of course professors expect their students to pay attention and take notes, that is a given. The human hand is only capable of writing so much at a time and especially not if the professor is speaking like an auctioneer. I’ve learned to deal with this by just listen intently and while information is being said, separate the useful information from the useless info. The other picture is probably the most accurate in terms of what people perceive college to be and from what I’ve seen at Baruch. When I walk into the library (and I go everyday, usually 2-3 times) and I go to the computer labs, 60 percent of the students are on a social networking site whether that me Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. I think that it’s good to get away from the work once in a while and there is no harm in goofing off for a while. College does have a purpose and that is to give you the tools to find a career suitable for you but at the same time it is also to find yourself. It is meant to be as hard and as difficult as you want to make it. I take education very seriously but since I’ve been through some of it already, I’ve learned that stressing less is key and if you have to sit back and laugh one day, DO NOT be afraid to do just that. After all, its a business anyway right?

Picture Credit: #1 -http://www.smosh.com/smosh-pit/photos/best-what-people-think-i-dowhat-i-really-do and http://sneakertalk.yuku.com/topic/329617

Picture Credit #2 -http://www.trendyblackguy.com/2012/03/the-ultimate-lazy-college-senior-meme/

Picture Credit #3 – http://www.memestache.com/Unhelpful+High+School+Teacher/tells-you-to-take-notes/255678

My name is James. I am from Staten Island, New York. I like to play lacrosse in my free time and I am a huge sports fan. My favorite sport is hockey, so the lockout they are in right now is killing me. I’m also a little bit of an adrenaline juke and would like to go skydiving and cage diving with Great White sharks.
So far I am enjoying Baruch. The commute is annoying but it is only a minor inconvenience. I have already made several new friends and my classes are not too bad. Overall I think I made the right decision in coming to Baruch and I am looking forward to a bright future here.

My name is Lindsey Martinez and I’m eighteen years old. I’m growing up in New York City. I went to high school for arts and there were only like 7 people in my class and I was with them all the time for all 4 years because thats how my school worked, so I kind of don’t know how to make new friends. Sorry if it seems like I’m being rude or standoffish, I’m just always thinking of a million things at once so I barley pay attention to what is happening around me. I’m pretty boring, so I’ll just tell a story instead of listing my hobbies or something like that. This story might be a little inappropriate but I figured were all adults here and I can type whatever I want so whatever. Also I never really spoke to any of you so don’t get the wrong impression of me please. Hopefully this is interesting, I don’t really know. So a couple of years ago I went to Amsterdam for the first time with my dad. Now when I thought of Amsterdam I had all the typical images in my head, tulips, canals, and the red light district. Of course I wanted to visit the red light district, I mean who doesn’t really? I just didn’t realize who I was going with. I was going to a place filled with sex and drugs with my dad. Now I don’t know the relationship any of you have with your dad but unless your totally comfortable talking with your dad about sex then I don’t suggest going there with him. So walking by the “coffee shops” or the windows with half naked girls, that wasn’t even that bad. I expected that. But walking past 100s of different sex toy stores with your dad, that was just horrible. Its like would you ever go to the museum of sex with your mom or dad. Probably not. Its hard to imagine a more uncomfortable situation. By the end of the night my dad was suggesting I try a “space cake”. I think he wanted to wipe the memory of that totally awkward experience.