Finally! the conclusion of my first semester is near. Sadly this also means that Freshmen Seminar is over, my favorite class this semester. In Freshmen seminar, we went to numerous places and workshops to help educate us in some type of way, but my favorite was the Baruch voices. The reason why this was my favorite enrichment workshop is because it is entertaining, and it can also become heart felt when emotional stories were acted out. Baruch voices showed how creative and authentic students can be. It also showed how comfortable they adjusting to college in general because based on the monologues, no one held back. They weren’t afraid to express themselves and that alone made me enjoy this workshop more than the others. I must say the actors were phenomenal as they did the monologues. It seems as if they were the actual person talked about in the monologue. This made it easier for me to understand each monologue and even empathize with a few. I found this impressive because it seems as if the monologue was just given these actors and they studied them to perfection. To have the ability to express many different personalities in one play was amazing. I honestly didn’t think it was possible to go from a pervert who talks about his sick obsession with this girl he loves to a teen expressing her dislike of her mother treating her like a child still. Baruch voices would forever be on my mind and i hope to see more monologues as i continue my college career at Baruch.

The workshop Voices was a presentation of the monologues that all the freshmen seminar classes needed to write. Always thought going to a school show to listen to what other people thought was kind of lame. But i guess college changes things. Voices was a great experience i went in very skeptical, but was later proved wrong. After the first presentation i thought wow i’m going through the same thing. The monologues really showed that i’m not alone  There are so many other freshmen that are going thought the same thing i am. I honestly thought that it would be extremely long but it happened to not be as long, which was good and kind of bad. i hoped that there would be more because they seemed very interesting, but i also really want to leave because i wanted to get food.

As my fro teacher told me again I will not be having lunch because we need to go to another workshop, I was very angry. It sounded stupid, boring, and was probably the last place I would want to be. As I walked in to the theater I was already planning the escape roots, but then I said maybe I will just stay for 2 minutes and then leave. At the end, believe it or not I was the one clapping the loudest. Hearing what everyone like me was going through and that people are also in the same position made me realize. It made me realize that I am not alone and that I was an idiot for not giving “voices” a chance. It was an unbelievable little play and was truly a pleasure. The way kids opened up and allowed what to be read, read- was great to hear. I am just one Baruch student who walked out with a smile and a sigh of relief. I thank the people who performed the play and the wroters of these blogs.

My favorite enrichment workshop was the Rubin Museum. It was so interesting to see the background of other religions and what they preach. The art was beautiful and always held a message behind it that was religious. The main reasons I found this museum interesting is firstly, because I enjoy learning about other cultures and religions, and secondly, it made me realize that in the end all the religions preach the same things which are love and peace. A Baruch student took as on a short tour and presented the art to us and the history behind it- I learned about Buddhism and the cornerstones of the religion. We were introduced to the figure of Buddha and how he became the base of Buddhism. I found the story very interesting: He was a prince that had never been out of the palace’s gates to see how the world is around him. One day, he went to the outside world and realized the massive poverty and sadness that was in the world so he decided to no longer be a prince, and dedicate his life to humbleness.  I also was surprised that the art at the museum started as a private collection of somebody that gave it to them for the public to see; we saw the room where Buddhists pray and it had that feeling of absolute serenity surrounding it.  Additionally, seeing the process of how the Buddhist statues are made was amazing as every step was presented by what the statues looked like at each stage and it was very interesting.

I feel that I enrichment work shops were somewhat helpful. I did not go to Voices and I am unable to discuss and have a creditable opinion on it. I wish I had gone to it but I had my registration date for classes while is was playing so I was unable to go to it. Truthfully I attended the other enrichment work shops but I didn’t pay attention and my mind wasn’t there. It is hard for me to clearly reflect and talk about any of the meetings.

My first semester at Baruch was interesting to say the least.  In the beginning I hated it because I had no friends, and it was just lonely.  Now I feel a little better that i made new friends, and they’re pretty cool people.  I didn’t think i was gonna find friends who were similar to me, but I did.  this picture is a picture of my new car.  I lost my car in hurricane sandy and i got a new one.  It is pretty damn awesome, i love it.  It’s fast as hell.  It doesn’t really have anything to do with baruch, but yeah uh it happened during this semester so why not post a picture of it!  i love cars and i love my new car.  i hope one day to maybe get a job working on cars, not a mechanic though, because they do not make a comfortable amount of money.  I hope to either be a cop, dea agent, client officer, or someone who works with cars.  Ken block is the man, maybe i can be like him some day, if you don’t know who he is, maybe you should look him up, because he really is the man!

Kevin Schrier

So I really thought that the museum was pretty interesting but I just didn’t really understand what was in it. I understand that it was mainly about budah and things like that I but I don’t get the point of the museum. What is it there to show and teach me? A lot od the things there were really cool and interesting, like the lady with a lot of arms that had a weapon in each hand but who is she, I just don’t knw these things. And what is her significance to me? These are the things that I don’t understand and would like to understand. I know this was suppose to be a blog about what we learnt in he museum but I am going to ask about what I didn’t learn in the museum. That doesn’t mean that it was not taught it just means that I didn’t learn this. But something that I did learn was that a lady had a hole collection of statues and still has a lot in her home but not enough room in her home, so she donated\leant the museum part of her collection and all  know is that it is suppose to be very peaceful and people are able to go there and think when ever they would like, and people actually do that after a stressful  week or things like that. That is what I learnt about in this museum.

My favorite workshop I went to for Freshman Seminar was the trip to the Rubin Museum. Before the trip I had walked by the museum a few times and I had always wanted to go in. This class finally gave me the chance. I love learning about art and the history the is involved with it. Up until the trip, most of my knowledge on art history had been on European art. I really liked this trip because it exposed me to art that I had never really learned about. I found it really interesting that the the museum had previously been a tenement building and then a department store. The way the owners converted the store to the museum looked really cool. Another part of the workshop that I enjoyed was the way the tour was led by a Baruch student. I thought the art in the museum was also really cool. The sculptures were fascinating. I wish I got to learn more about the history behind each piece though. The meditation room was very interesting. It was dark with a lot of candles and figures of Buddha. I can see why people would want that kind of peaceful atmosphere to meditate.

I liked all the workshops though because they exposed me to things I wouldn’t otherwise have experienced. The News Literacy seminar was interesting because it taught me not to trust everything you hear or see in the media. Voices was fun because it taught me about my peers. My favorite part of these seminars ultimately was bonding with my fellow students.

My favorite enrichment workshop was Baruch Voices. I was not really interested in the News Literacy Workshop and the Rubin Museum.  I liked it for many reasons. First of all, I believe the monologues were well-written, organized, and performed really well. I was able to put myself in the narrator’s place and pretend I was in their situation no matter what it was. At first I was just thinking that it would be super boring and that I would not really like it but it turned out to be one of my coolest experiences here at Baruch College. Another thing I liked was the environment. While the monologues were being performed I was so relaxed and calm. It gave you a chance to get away from the busy environment when going to class or traveling in the busy city. Even though I was falling asleep I still was attentive and enjoyed it. I believe I covered all of the reasons as to why I liked Baruch Voices, now I’m just trying to make the word count. My overall experience with Freshman Seminar was a pretty cool and interesting experience. Although I did not really speak up in conversations, I’ve learned a lot about my fellow classmates. 😀