FRO12 LC15

College has been a very different experience for me so far. When I wake up and get ready for class, I don’t have that feeling of going to school every day that I’ve had my whole life. Instead I feel more relaxed and as though I’m in control of my own life rather than being told how to live. I’m able to make my own plans and do work whenever I want, as long as I get it done. Also not having any homework to do is a big plus.

Not only is school more relaxed, but I’ve been able to make a lot more friends. Coming into college, I thought making friends would be hard, since I’ve never been the social type of person. But I’ve found that I could relate to many people and starting conversations with them is really easy. I grew up to be very kind to mostly everyone I know and even to those I don’t know. I think because of that I’ve never really had any problems with people. I try not to find reasons to argue with people and instead try to get on everyone’s good side. I’m that person that people can go to when they need help with something or just need to talk. These traits have made high school and, so far, college life really easy for me. I’ve never had to deal with any drama, and I’ve been able to make friends with everyone I talk to.

Something I’m struggling with though is participating in clubs and events, or even looking for a job. I guess the reason for that is because I’m too scared or lazy to go out and spend my time doing extra work even though I know I can get a lot out of it. I’ve always needed that push to do something more with my time, I guess that is one of the only things that won’t change with a college experience. That is something I would like to change, during my college experience, so that I can mature to be someone well-rounded and more interesting to everyone around me.

Thankfully, I’m happy so far with my college life. I enjoy being able to relax most of the time, while mainly worrying about classes when major exams are coming up. So far, I have been able to plan my future up to the point where I move into an apartment with some friends by sophmore and junior year, and officially deciding my major by sophmore year. As time goes on, I’ll know exactly what I want to do for the future.

My name is Chris, and I went to Francis Lewis High School. I was born and raised in Queens, and I like to play pool and handball. I used to play drums in high school, but now there’s no time for that. It’s hard to find time for anything ever since college started. High school was so easy and fun, and now there’s no time for fun.

The transition from high school to college hit me a lot harder than I expected. The classes and the workload changed so much. The 45 minute classes used to be bearable, but now that they’re 75 minutes it’s hard to stay awake. I used to only have to travel 30 minutes to get to school, but now it’s about 90, so I have to wake up earlier. I used to enjoy sleeping in class, but it’s a different story when you’re paying for the classes.

The change in work is insane. I used to have almost no work in high school, but now there’s always work to do, like a paper due in a couple weeks. There’s always a paper due. If there’s no work, then there’s studying to do. It’s a big change from going to school with only a pen. I used to never have to study for my classes, but now it’s needed to get good grades. There’s a quiz almost every week and it’s kind of annoying.

The good thing about college is the freedom. There’s so much more control in your own hands instead of being told what to do. Another good thing is that there’s no class on Fridays, so there’s a three day weekend every week. I hope that I can adjust to college life better, so that I can enjoy myself more.

I was in middle school when the pressure started. The pressure of college. It was over five years away and it was already there to haunt me, only getting worse with time. So in high school when I would get the constant, “Oh, where are you looking at school?” or “What do you want to go to school for?”, I never knew. I was just a kid. Or so I thought, until the day when I had to start really thinking about it. Only I didn’t really know where to begin. I literally had no godly idea about what I wanted to do with myself. It also didn’t help that I was surrounded by my friends that had their lives all planned out. “I want to be a history professor”. “I want to be an actor”. “I want to be an actuary.” Damn these people. I mean, I’m by no means a stupid kid. I just never put much thought into the future, and high school taught us that that was “normal”. But it shouldn’t be normal for kids to have no direction, it should be normal for them to find direction, and find it when they’re young. But at least for me, being thrown into the world when you have no bearing was just the kick in the ass that I needed.

I was always a pretty good student, and my acceptance to Baruch’s Dean’s Scholars program helped give me even more motivation to get myself on the right track. That’s why I have been loving my college experience thus far. Shifting into this new age of my life has granted me a reboot in a sense, and I plan on making the most of it. Being in a completely new setting with all new people wouldn’t have been my thing a few months ago, but now I love having the ability to do so many new things. Being in the city also helps to make that even more possible, there’s nothing you can’t do in here, and I try to remain out and about as much as I can.

I also surprisingly haven’t experienced homesickness yet, I always have loved being home. But I guess that came as a part of my transformation, for I haven’t missed home too much. Of course I do miss my family and all my friends from high school, but I still get to see them from time to time. Two of my best friends from high school go to different schools in Manhattan, so I do get to see them pretty frequently, so I can’t really complain about missing anyone too much.

The one thing I am lacking in my college experience in comparison to high school, however, is a lot of involvement. I was very involved in high school, especially with musical and performing groups, which unfortunately Baruch has a major lack of. Yet I hope to find something I can get involved with soon because I miss doing things like that, and I would hate to have my college experience not have a lot of involvement. Getting deeply involved will also allow me to find more friends and people to spend time with, which I know can only increase my enjoyment.

And that it really what it is all about: enjoyment. I do have aspirations for myself now, I want to pursue a degree in marketing and land a good internship next year if possible, but I also don’t want to miss out on my college life. I know that I made a good choice in Baruch, and I hope that my college experience is all it can be.

Halloween costumes from this year with new friends I met here at school 😀

Throughout my life, I have always received this assignment in my first year of a new school, whether it was middle school, high school, or college. I have always struggled to write about myself because I find that I am constantly changing throughout the different phases of my life.

Today, I stand at eighteen years of age with a slight clue to what I want to become in the future. I intend on pursuing Business at Baruch College, but what department of business I have not figured out yet. When I was younger, I actually wanted to be a basketball player. Instead of practicing basketball when I was young, I started to play handball. Handball has been part of my life for nine years now, and it’s the sport I enjoy the most.

I have just one sibling who is three years older than I am. Having an older brother was fun while growing up; I can say all the things my brother taught me when I was younger has had a huge impact on who I am today. I look up to my brother because he balances schoolwork and his hobbies well. He also relies on nobody but himself for his success. Currently, my brother is in Chicago concentrating on school. Being the only son around the house definitely gives me more responsibility, but I understand that responsibility grows with age.

If my friends were to describe me, they would describe me as a shy and quiet person. I have never been the social type of person, but as I get older I learn to be more comfortable with communicating with others. I also learn to appreciate the different types of friendship that come along in my life.

Currently, the main obstacle that I’m facing is the transition to college life. It is a tremendous challenge to maintain the GPA that I want due to the fact that my classes are a lot harder than before. Another factor that adds into the difficulty of college is work. Every week, I work Monday through Friday from 3 P.M. to 7 P.M. This forces me to manage my time wisely in order to finish my homework assignments. Nevertheless, College has been a great experience for me so far since it gives me the freedom that I’ve always wanted.

Transitioning from high school to college is easy. I only need to walk an avenue past my high school and I’m in front of the Vertical Campus. If I compare the senior year of high school work load to my freshman year college work load, forget about it. They cannot be placed next to each other. Although there is a lot more work to do, I love going to school. I love the adrenaline rush that comes as a midterm is passed out, and I love the freedom of doing anything during the breaks between classes.  When I am not in school, I hide in my room with my exciting collection of text books wondering what I should do. Something must be wrong with me because I usually end up asleep on my bed with my textbooks untouched on the desk.

Why did I pick this schedule? I always ask this to myself when I get up early in the morning for class. There is nothing worse than waking up at 6:30 during the Fall when mornings are dark. I always have to prepare myself for the long day ahead of me. I get through the boring lecture classes by telling myself that there are only x amount of hours left in the school day. I hope my professors don’t notice me looking at the clock every 5 minutes. Oh how I wish I could speed time up for some classes and slow them down for others. Leaving the last class of the day gives the best feeling of relief. It gives me time just to prepare for the next day.

Sports play a huge role in my life. I love sports, but I do not play any sports because I could never picture myself competing with a man twice my size. Instead, I love to follow sports. American football, basketball, baseball, and even NASCAR racing make the list of sports I enjoy following. Every week, I look forward to the next Sunday. I can spend a whole day sitting in front of the tv watching a marathon of football games. My fantasy football teams are bonuses to following the sport. Now that the NBA season is starting in the coming week, it looks like I will have to work on managing my time better. I am thankful that the semester is half way through already.

My first semester at Baruch has been okay. There is not much to complain about. There is not much so far that impresses me. I go with the flow because that is the type of person I am. I go to class each day with only one objective in my mind. Getting lunch. I look foward to the chance of I look forward to the excitement from taking my Finals exams and the nervous feeling that follows it. It is all part of college life.

My name is Kenny.  I am tall, skinny and needs glasses.  I denied wearing glasses during high school because it made me feel uncomfortable.  College is a new start so I gave it another try and begin wearing it more often.  My parents  wants me to be fat so they force me to eat food even when I am full.  I am not sure if this goes for most Chinese parents, but my parents will nag me to eat more and more until I feel like going to the bathroom.   If I do not finish the food, the leftovers will not be food tomorrow.  I cannot stress how many times I secretly threw out the leftovers.

I identify myself as a lazy, but disciplined person.   Although I am not fond of school work,  I still do it because I am disciplined and know the consequences.  I think my parents made me like this, because they tell me the consequence of not going to school every day.   Some things they say it in a nice way like  “work with me in the construction place if you do not go to school.”  If they are saying it in an angry way there are so much Chinese curses that I do not even understand or translate into English.

I play the role of a brother, a son , a student, a gamer, a friend, and an explorer.  I have three younger brothers and they are difficult to control even though I am the oldest.  I am a social gamer.  I get together with my friends from high school and we  make up to  10-way Skype calls and play with each other.   I am also an explorer because I am still searching for my major and testing  classes for majors that I might go into.

In my freshmen year, I hope to get at least a B in all my classes and complete all the required courses.  Life in college is much more difficult in terms of managing time and testing.  In high school, it was just review my notes and I get good grades.   In College, it is review my notes, make flash cards and make study sheets and my grade still isn’t what I wanted.  Managing time is also hard because we have so much time to manage.  I use it up really fast without knowing and the work I still have to complete is due in a day or two before I start it.

Halloween is almost here, and I get anxious of many things.  The thing that scared me the most is the first scary movie I watched “the Grudge”.  I remember running down streets at night staring at dark alley fearing the stare of the grudge.   What is even more scary is as I am talking about the grudge, I noticed a black object on my hand.  I pulled it off my hand but it just popped and I actually thought it was the grudge, since there is blood on my hand.  No, it is not the grudge, I just killed a mosquito in the middle of his meal.  Although I do get paranoid when I bleed.  I am a little blood phobia, because I had fainted one time while bleeding .  The nurse said I had low blood sugar at that time, and gave me a candy bar.  However, after that incident every time I see myself bleeding I start to recall the bright white light when I fainted.   I might have got a glimpse of the afterlife who knows.

College. People say that it is a great step into a brighter future but I think it stands for MORE WORK. I have always thought college would be all about meeting new people and having fun, but that hasn’t been my case so far. All I have been doing is going to class then coming home to find myself either fooling around or studying. I continue to tell myself to join a club or to get out more, but I’m becoming lazier and lazier. This month, I even took off from work because of midterms and essays. Last month, this sounded like a great idea, but now I regret it. Having more time to me just means eating more and staying home.

As a college student maintaining an outstanding or even a decent GPA is very important. From day one, I have found myself slacking. During the summer, I knew I was capable of keeping an A average but I think I am stuck with a B right now. There’s always that one class that gets to me. I feel that no matter how hard I try, I will be an average student in that class and get lucky once in a while. For the better GPA, I have to try my best in all the other classes.

Always keeping a smile on my face. That’s me! 😀

I’m really shy when it comes to meeting new people. I can be really awkward too. But once you get to know me, I can be super crazy. Family and friends are my top priorities. “Count your blessings, not your problems” is a quote I live by because many people complain about their lives and forget how blessed they are to be living in this world.

I enjoy reading, browsing the internet, and of course, eating. If I could eat McDonald’s chicken nuggets and drink bubble tea everyday, I’d be more than glad to. My favorite hobby is volleyball although I don’t think I’m any good. Two summers ago, I used to play it every day with my friends. It was my way of reducing stress and having fun.

This past summer, it was my first time visiting China. I experienced culture shock because it was so different. No one spoke English; everyone spoke Mandarin. I don’t speak Mandarin at all. The climate was hotter and really humid compared to the weather in New York. Many public places didn’t have toilets. A lot things were really cheap, including food, clothes, transportation, etc. It was a great experience and I will definitely go back soon.

Entering Baruch College was not what I was expecting. It’s different from what we see in movies because we don’t have a huge campus. It doesn’t really feel like I’m in college considering there is no campus life. However, I’m enjoying myself so far. I’ve made new friends and I’m looking forward to the upcoming years.
 

This is a picture of me and my best friend ready for prom.

Hard-working student. That is me. My special studying habit started when I was in Seoul, Korea. As many people know, education system in Korea is very hard to survive. As a 7^thgrader, I went to school, private academy, and even to the night-time studying room to stay as a top student until 2:00 A.M. “TIRED!” So I was really happy when my parents told me that we are moving to America. I just wanted to escape from this harsh reality and start everything again.

But I faced a new obstacle- English. I was pretty confident with English since I went to what so called “English-specialized” middle school in Korea. My grammar and vocabulary was acceptable but the problem was speaking. Few days after I arrived in U.S, I called pizza place to order a pizza pie. I could not speak like I wanted. “Hello? Hello?” The man angrily responded and I was just mumbling words. He hung up and called my aunt whose number was connected to the address. The man said never make a joking call again. This experience was so disgraceful. It left a scar on my confidence so I decided that something needs to change.

That was the day when I started my special studying plan. I made two versions of school notebook-one in English and one in Korean. I translated what I learned in every class into Korean to understand and study better. Since I did not fully understand the test materials, I memorized everything word to word. I repeated over and over again even during the meal time until I become perfect. Fortunately, the result was satisfying. I passed ESL in one year. I never gave up and all my efforts paid up at the end.

After these years of hard core studying, I decided to become involved in Bayside High School Korean Club. For two years, I performed Korean Fan Dance on Korean Lunar New Year Festival in my high school. Our club members put much effort to every performance and I felt so empowered on the stage. Luckily, I became background decoration team leader and later vice president and finally senior officer. Being a part of Korean club and class gave me many new opportunities. I entered numerous Korean Essay Writing contest and won many of them. I also had a chance to volunteer at Korea Taekwondo which is a Korean martial art. Four years in Korean club helped me to keep my language skill strong and set my identity.

Last row in the center is me!

Move on to some personal sides of me, I enjoy reading books especially about self – development and some philosophical contents. These days, I spend Friday morning to go to library and borrow books. I am happy when I carry bunch of books in a bag and drink black ice coffee on my way home. In addition, I love to watch Korean drama and comedy shows. These are my methods to reduce stress!

One trait that I like about myself is my organization skills. I plan ahead everything before and follow my rules to try my best on everything. I review before class, highlight notes, and study hard. However, I don’t like myself when I worry too much. I am cool with other stuff but not with studying. Sometimes, my worries make myself really tired that I wish I can be simpler in mind.

Overall, there are three words that I value most in my life: Sincerity, effort, and modesty. I believe with these three words in my mind, I can be happy and successful.

Some people like to call me Bri Bri or Conigs or other names that I have no clue relate to me but I answer to them anyways. I consider myself an outgoing, smart, organized, funny, and cool individual. My favorite hobby is to play volleyball. I love playing volleyball and watching volleyball in my free time. I started getting in to volleyball when I realized that I was terrible at basketball and that I should use my height to my advantage. I first started playing volleyball when I tried out for the 7th grade team in middle school. At that moment I fell in love with the sport.

Volleyball for me was awsome because I had my brother to help me and I had the most amazing coaches to help develop me into a great player. I tried out for a club volleyball team when I was in the 9th grade called Long Island Volleyball Club (LIVBC). Once I made the team, I knew that my experience and love for the sport could only increase. My team and I went to various tournaments during the school year with the biggest tournament being the Junior Olympics held in the beginning of July in Atlanta, Georgia. In the convention center that we played in, there were hundreds of courts with thousands of athletes who shared the same love for volleyball as I do. We played against teams from the East Coast, West Coast, and even teams from Puerto Rico! I had the most amazing time and learned so much from that experience.

After my club volleyball year as a 15 I played as a 16, 17, and 18. We traveled to California for a tournament and tournaments for the Junior Olympics in Austin, Texas and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Unfortunately, I was unable to go and play in the Junior Olympics as an 18 in Houston, Texas because I broke my finger. I felt so bad to let my team down, but I knew that if I wanted to play volleyball in the future I would have to let my finger heal. Once I was cleared by the doctor to play volleyball again, I played men’s doubles beach volleyball with my brother at Cedar beach on Long Island to get myself used to playing volleyball again.

Besides the ability to major in mathematics or actuarial science and the accessibility of coming home when I want, I chose to attend Baruch College because of the success of the DIII Men’s Volleyball program. With the love and passion that I have for volleyball I knew that I wanted to play competitive volleyball during my years in college. I am extremely excited and anxious to play Men’s Volleyball for Baruch College for the next 4 years. I know that I may not play much as a Freshman, but I know that I will be a valuable asset to the team in the future. With my brother playing on the team currently, as a Junior, I am also excited to play on the same team as him.

Volleyball has taught me so much. Volleyball has taught me how to manage my time, to be dependent on myself, to be a leader, to be a team player, and to be open to new ideas. If I could teach people one thing, it would be to pursue your dream and let nothing stop you. Once I step onto the volleyball court I become a new person and I feel so happy inside. I pursued my dream of playing volleyball and I made sure that nothing and no one could stop me.