Freshman Seminar

My experience at Baruch so far has been great to me. I adapted to college better than what I expected, also I made a lot of new friends.  I found college very stressful, because there are so many reading and assignments that have to be done.  I chose a photograph of New York City, because Baruch it’s located in the city, there is myriad of things you can do.  I like to explore different restaurant and stores near Baruch during the two hours break everyday.

photograph taken by Yen Ning Tseng

College has been a rough, yet interesting ride. It’s completely different than high school, where I didn’t have to put in much effort for a good grade. Here, the professors grade tougher, give more assignments, and expect you to read all the pages assigned. Since it all started, I have been working hard, but always get distracted. Social media is one of the biggest distractions, but I do take some time to study and write my papers as well. It feels overwhelming at times, but it’s definitely an experience that I won’t forget. My first semester was fun and busy, and hope that the new couple years are the same way.

At first i thought college would be a breeze just like high school was. I got good grades, had tons of friends and everything was just easier.

Then i realized how stressful and tiring college can be. You need to put a lot of time and effort into your studies, and it caught me by surprise. Im not doing as well as i should be in my first semester at Baruch. If i can give advice to any incoming Baruch students, it would be to get a head start and be ready to work from day one.

I chose this meme because I feel like it relates to my math class.  The math courses here are pretty tough and I seem to be pretty bad it, and it just seems to get harder, so this really sums it up well for me.  So hopefully i’ll get better at it throughout my career at Baruch.

So I thought of this gif to represent my journey so far at Baruch.  I’ve struggled a lot of the last couple of months. College is nothing like High School.  For high school I got away with coming to class, listening to the teacher, then getting 100s on the exams.  Not here. Not here at all. Even when I go to class, the material is only supplemented by the lectures. I’ve been struggling to time mange and get all my reading in.  This gif use to make me laugh a lot. But now I actually feel like this. I feel you man….

Besides classes and assignments. Baruch has been pretty great to me.  In the beginning we started off pretty rocky. I was in ESL and missing my scholarship money. But all of that got straightened out.  I ended up meeting a lot of interesting people and made a lot of new friends and experiences.  I’m excited for the rest of the first term and next semester.

Wow oh wow I really cant not believe that my first semester in college is coming to an end. My friends were right, the semesters really do fly by! I think the one word that came sum up my feelings from school is “Relief”. Going into the semester I was extremely nervous and worried about everything regarding college. From my long commute to having bad teachers I was really hoping that everything would work out the best for me. And boy did things pan out for me! All in all I really did like my teachers and was able to learn a lot from each one of them. I thought I was going to hate my music class, but in the end it actually turned out to be my favorite class. I also got the chance to meet some really great people and have already made some great friendships. Truly I can see that my first semester was a success! I am very relieved and glad i got my first semester out of the way and hopefully finals will go well! Looking forward to a great 3 and half more years with you all!

                                     my first 3 months at Baruch have been pretty awesome. In no time I have mad many friends who I know will be around for me for some time to come. My basketball team has mad is much more enjoyable for me as well. they have already become like brothers to me which is exactly what I needed to survive the crucial first three months. the school work has been a change but I’ve learned to adjust and now I don’t really hate school that much. Choosing Baruch was definitely one the best decisions I have ever made, and I see that more and more each day.

The URL for this image is http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/kkyr.com/files/2013/10/Young-Man-Studying-at-Night-Credit-iStock-179423702-630×472.jpg

I pick this picture to represent my experience in Baruch so far because since I started college I have been sleeping late to do my assignments and readings for my classes. When I was in high school, I didn’t have this problem because I didn’t have that much readings and assignments to do. However, I’m starting to get used to the amount of readings and assignments that I have to do in college. Other than the amount of works that I have to do in college which is kind of overwhelming. The first three months in Baruch is fun and helpful. I learned about most of the stuffs that Baruch offers and where I can get help when I need it. My overall experience in Baruch is been good so far.

I chose this meme because I have been getting tons of homework lately. After finishing up all my homework, I felt like I learned nothing meaningful. The professors sometimes gives out homework to keep their students busy. While homework may seem really long , I think that students still need to finish up all their work that the professor assigned even if the homework is long and meaningless.  This has been feeling so far about Baruch.

Mahipaul Sathu

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Transitioning from high school to college has been a journey. I remember my first week at Baruch and the difficulties I experienced. I felt the pressure as the work load would pick up leaving me stressed. I had to put more time and effort into studying, prepping for classes and managing my time. Throughout high school I never had to do so, leaving me to find a rhythm that will help me in college. Comparing myself from the start of college to the present has changed me into a person who is ready for the upcoming semesters. My first semester has taught me everything that is needed to be successful in college, this being the ability to multi task and handle tremendous amounts of work. Besides the workload of college I have been able to find time to have fun through the various amounts of clubs and activities the school offers. The people in Baruch are some of the friendliest people I have met and makes you feel welcomed. Baruch has an atmosphere that makes me feel happy to be a bearcat and glad to be a future alumni.

When it was the first day of class I was beyond excited to begin classes and live life as a college student woo!! I was ready with an abundant amount of enthusiasm and all my new school supplies, because I was ready for a fresh and clean slate!

I felt so good that I started to feel comfortable to explore different things like…. MY HAIR COLOR

I got a lot of compliments and I had a lot of fun playing with it, dying it different shades of pink and purple! And then, finally realizing the bleach had fried my hair, I cut it. and then looked like Miley….

But that didn’t take long till I dyed it back to almost normal! Brunette is better for me, especially when the temperature keeps falling by ten degrees everyday!

I was very stressed towards the middle of the semester, and I began to be overwhelmed, and I came across this meme that made me feel so much better! MOTIVATIONNNN…

And the morning classes were tough as well, because I would be up late the night before studying and working!

However, all in all, my experience at Baruch has been fun and I am excited to see how next semester will play out! Registration was hard, but I got some classes that I wanted, so I am looking forward to that!

I will end this post by saying THANK YOU to Crystal, for all the help she has given and all the smiles to! THANKS! GO DTG!

My first semester at Baruch has been very intense in many different respects. I know that we were only supposed to choose one image to represent this experience but it has been so ‘all over the place,’ that I decided to use a few to accurately illustrate my feelings towards it all.

Initially, I did come in like a wrecking ball. I was energetic, excited about being active in various clubs, meeting a lot of new people and getting others aware of my talents as a singer, using my “free time” to write music, and finally having the experience I had always wanted. However, five courses, a part time job, a music career and a social life did not mesh quite as well as I had hoped they would.

One of my biggest challenges has been getting the high grades I thought would come easy to me. I took two years off to work and I figured that coming back into the school environment as a mature, focused young adult, would make the studying and productivity required to excel second nature. I was wrong, and the best example of this is definitely Math. I loathe it.

I know not, what this sleep is that you speak of. Sleep? Ha! We used to be friends. That’s all I’ll say on that matter.

So here I am, almost at the end of the first chapter of my college experience. I have been frustrated, exhausted, demotivated, confused etc. But I have also become friends with some amazing people, who keep me sane on a daily basis and I am truly thankful for them. I have some great professors who are dedicated and have made the adjustment much easier, and in general I love the feeling of enlightenment and learning new things everyday! So at this point I’m a little shaken, upsidedown emotionally , unbalanced, but hanging in there with an optimistic parachute incase I happen to fall!

My experience in Baruch so far is interesting. Before I came to study in Baruch, I was so convinced that I will study management as a major. Maybe I was influenced too much by Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great,” believed in exploring efficiency  to change the world. But after I joint clubs like Finance & Economics Society and Wall Street Club, I changed my mind. This picture was taken during my first trip to the trading floor located on the first floor of the Newman library building. I was researching for data needed for a stock pitch about Procter & Gamble. It was an assignment for the mentorship program of  Finance & Economics Society I joint in order to build up my experiences. While I was a little bit lost at that time because Bloomberg is quite a difficult software to use, still, I found myself enjoying working on the project.  That’s the time I realized that finance is my real interest and should be my focus of my future career. If it is not because of all the amazing resources and opportunities provided by Baruch College, I would not be the person I am today.

Go Bearcat!

I made this meme because I saw these words on other memes and I though it showed exactly how I feel about school! I get really angry at it and I don’t want to go sometimes and I contemplate if I could ever become one of those success stories like Steve Jobs or anything like that just so that I wouldn’t have to go to school. And then no matter what, deep inside I know, Im still gonna go :'(  I honestly really like Baruch and have met new people that I like to spend time with! I didn’t know what to expect coming here and thought maybe I wont make friends who understood my humor, maybe I’d hate it, maybe all the professors will suck, but they don’t! I narrowed down what I want to be and get my degree in and I can see myself here for longer. The hardest part as transition from getting out of school besides 11 and not having any serious classses or needing to study to only starting at 10 somedays and leaving at 430 then having to come home and actually do work and putting in hours into studying only to come out with b’s </3 BUT ANYWAYS I’m actually really excited for next semester because besides the actual studying that I have to do that I didn’t prior to college, its been great here.

Coming from a mostly Catholic community in the Caribbean, it is always refreshing to be exposed to new cultures and lifestyles. I feel enlightened following our trip to the museum because I was exposed to the beautiful Religion of Buddhism and the amazing levels of spirituality present in their beliefs and practices. Apart from that, the artifacts and art that we saw was absolutely mind blowing. I caught myself in awe of one painting in particular that our guide told us we weren’t supposed to stare at because legend has it that it would send someone crazy if they gazed for too long. So far so good though! Unless  I have been missing a screw this whole time! I have alot of respect for the religion and I look at their culture as graceful, beautiful and one with the universe. I am catholic but I believe in the power of energy and putting out there what you want to get back which is similar to a lot of their principles.

I think living in a place like New York, it is important for me to be exposed to these kinds of experiences to be prepared for all the new people I will interact with throughout my academic and professional journey.

In total honesty, I enjoyed the trip to the museum very much so. Learning about other peoples’ religions has always been something that I have been interested and that’s exactly what that was. Seeing the culture from a whole different perspective was very insightful. My favorite part of the whole thing was the huge mural of all the gods on the wall. Understanding their culture was something that I always wanted to look into, and that is exactly what the trip did for me.

I would say it was kinda annoying having to go to the museum by myself since I was not able to go with all you guys last week. Usually I find museums very boring but I happened to find this one interesting. Although I did not get a tour like the rest of you guys, I found some of the Himlalyan artifacts and pictures to be very interesting and captivating. My friends also told me about the Dali Lama exhibit and how they have some sort of artwork that only he is supposed to see, although I did not have time to go visit that exhibit. I heard he is coming to New York soon so I am guessing that is a big deal to people. I am not really sure what is role is, but I am very interested in learning more about what he does.

This gif embodies how I feel about this semester so far because just like the cat, I’ve had to deal with some stressful and ridiculous things, but I can’t stop going. There’s too much to do, and I’m not comfortable settling for just okay. So, I keep waddling on.

I liked the class trip to the museum. I learned a lot a bout Buddhism that I didn’t know.  In class we usually  speed through it because we re-learn it every year.  But there’s so much more to cover, that was shown in displays around the Museum.  My least favorite part of the trip was walking there. BLAH… I walk enough in my day. I didn’t need to journey over there. when there was a subway in front. My favorite part was walking in to the spiraling staircase, and looking up.  I thought I was really nice and I sort of always wanted that in my future house, if I lived in a mansion. But it was even more significant when we learned that it represented ones journey to the top of the mountain.  I think following the beliefs of Buddhism would be a good choice because, to me it represents a calmer, relaxed life.