The enrichment workshop was interesting. It taught us the meaning of being a leader and how we can become leaders ourselves. I liked how they included us in the workshop and asked us questions and made us participate instead of it just being like a lecture.

Coming into Baruch, the common theme that came across was “join everything you can”. I was always reluctant to join things but whenever I did in High School, it always paid off. Thankfully I decided to get involved in things early and with the help of my friends, already joined multiple clubs. Ironically, I had to miss 3 important club events to attend this leadership workshop that advocated getting involved. I agreed with the students entirely, participation is important. The students on the panel learned so many things from their leadership experiences like how to direct meetings, how to communicate effectively, how to manage time, etc. Networking is a huge bonus of joining activities because the people you meet and the relationships you make will allow you to meet even more people that will unlock multiple opportunities. You will hear about events, meetings, workshops that you wouldn’t have otherwise know about. You could possibly meet influential leaders in a variety of fields and even find jobs through networking as many students have. Although we don’t always want to say it, its not always what you know, its about who you know.

Joining a club at Baruch has so far made my entire college experience. I joined Hillel within the first two weeks of school and haven’t left since. You’ll see me there at almost every break between classes, attending multiple lunch and learn series with influential leaders, CEOs and other businessmen. I met over 50 people just through this club and I never expected this to happen. I am generally very shy but meeting all these people with whom I had shared interests allowed me to break out of my shell. You get so many points of view about teachers, which majors are beneficial, which teachers aren’t the best, how you should allocate your time daily and schedule wise, what classes you should take now and which to save over for next time. By interacting with people and joining clubs you get so much more input about EVERYTHING and without it, I would honestly be lost. Schedulizer was introduced to me days before registration all because of the kids I met at Hillel and without it, I wouldn’t have been able to make a schedule at all. I attend EMET fellowship every week, am an active member of Hillel and B.O.S.S. and am currently working towards creating a jewish based sorority. Being a part of all of these things has made me all the more knowledgable and I couldn’t be any happier.

I feel like this leadership workshop was very successful in getting the point across about participating in as much as you can. I enjoyed each of the stories from the students on the panel and found their advice helpful.

What resonated with me most was a quote said by one of the students:

“If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room”

This quote really got me thinking and made me realize the importance of participation. However, just participating isnt enough. Being an active member of a club means you can influence others and be influenced by them as well. You should be able to contribute all you can while simultaneously helping yourself. Overall, I also advise joining everything you can as soon as you can!

Baruch has turned out to be pretty much what i expected. All classroom and no campus life. I guess its true what they say, “You get what you pay for”. In my case i have paid nothing so I guess I still came out on top! Other then the out of class experiences, my in class experience has been great. Awesome teachers and friends help create a warm and informative learning atmosphere. I really am going to miss LC14 next semester!  Hope Everyone stays in touch!

Personally, I found the workshop on leadership to be very inspiration and motivational. Listening to the Baruch leaders truly inspired me to pursue extra circulars so that one day i too may be a leader. I left the workshop thinking about the leaders that we met and how much they have accomplished in their years at Baruch and that convinced me to want to start joining clubs as well. However, i also had some complaints with the presentation as well, mainly that the main man presenting seemed too jittery and in a way nervous. I guess I can say that for me it wasn’t as much the presentation itself that affected me as it was what they said and the deeper meaning i took away from it.

My first semester at Baruch was a huge surprise. I went from taking a gap year where I did zero work, to spending most of my free nights doing homework. The atmosphere also was a dramatic change for me. I went to a private high school where I knew every student in my grade, maybe even every student in my school. At Baruch I knew no one. There was no one to do work with, no one to hang out with during free time, and no one to help me with my studies I was struggling in. The LC changed all of this. I was in the same classes as mostly the same kids every single day. It helped me grow and create new friendships. The hardships of college just became easier and more laid-back. The LC is a great idea and being part of it really helped me apart to the new environment. In the beginning I believed that FRO would just be a waste of an hour and fifteen minutes of my day once a week; however, that did not turn out to be true. FRO has helped me ease into my courses, plan my schedule, and think about possible  career options. Even though we had work in FRO and got zero credits for it, FRO is a great class and really helps freshman.

Coming into Baruch I had no idea what FRO would be like and hand no clue what to expect. I was excited to see that Lancia, our academic advisor would be with us during class, giving us guidance as well.  Both Lancia and Namit gave great guidance and it was nice to hear the point of views of an advisor as well as a student. I generally appreciated the powerpoint that explained what classes were required to each major, each school and pathways in general. The one on one meeting with Lancia was helpful as well because I got to express my worries and struggles and get a bit of guidance as to whether I was headed in the right direction and what I should change. I learned about a lot of events that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about, like tutoring workshops, networking workshops and all the wonderful lunch and learn series that were provided for Dean’s Scholars. Overall there was a lot of interesting discussion, especially during the class where we discussed morals and ethics as well as the lack of classes regarding ethics in school. however, at times I felt like the gaps before and after class made the day more stressful. At times, I felt as though FRO required more work than some of my other classes. Other times, I felt as though it was a good break from actual school work where I could just interact with my LC. Although we weren’t able to spend a ton of time together, FRO allowed us all to hang out and get to know each others perspectives.

One thing I really enjoyed was the introductory discussions that allowed us to learn more about one another and build better communication skills and battle the fear of public speaking. I personally think that high school prepared me very well for college but FRO did help me keep my focus and gave me time to make a schedule for every week of everything I had to accomplish. The community service project seemed like a great idea at first as well, but I wasn’t a fan of the fact that it was a mandatory deadline. It felt more forced and took some of the enjoyment out of the activity but it definitely reminded me to get involved in my community and I got to know my classmates better through it.

However, my favorite activity would have to be the first blog post. We got to share some personal things to a group of people we didn’t know too well and I think that helps when you’re part of an LC for your other classes because you build a level of comfort and speaking in front of each other becomes a lot easier, especially in Gander’s Communication class. I loved sharing our favorite songs and seeing the variety of music taste. Coming into college my biggest worry was not finding a group of people that I could relate to but this activity automatically gave all of us something to talk about.

I didn’t expect Freshman Seminar to be such an informal class. I thought was quite nice since it made the atmosphere more friendly. I also didn’t expect there to be homework. Hm. But overall, it really was a nice experience , especially being able to get good guidance from your advisor and your peer mentor every week. It really helped iron out all the mess leading up to creating schedules and tell you what you need to do to survive in college. Thanks Ms. Lancia and Namit! 😀

Baruch so far has been what I expected of commuter college. Well, I actually didn’t know much about how college worked so I didn’t really expect much at all besides the fact that it’s school. I was told numerous times in my high school that college life is way more relaxed and easier unless you go to an Ivy League (or an equivalent). I wish I could say that was true, but I’m not too sure. The workload somehow adds up to be the same, even though I have less classes. I think it’s really just me with time management problems, so meh. The school itself is nice and inviting, so it’s a positive experience so far (Escalators and roomy elevators ftw!).

It can be quite difficult to adjust to a new situation. However, with the help of freshman seminar, the transition was made much easier from high school to college. Fro helped me to learn plenty of different techniques to improve my communication skills and studying habits. On this end, I found freshman seminar to be quite helpful and informative. Furthermore, I found the process of choosing classes for next semester to be made much easier thanks to Lancia’s help. However, I also found the day of community service to be counter-productive for it was meant to help build  a sense of community but in reality, Not all of the LC did the same project and the project itself just seemed tedious and unnecessary. Besides that, i like FRO.

I have enjoyed Baruch so far. FRO was fun, even though it was a pain going up to the 12th floor every week. I really liked connecting with everyone and the guidance that I got was really helpful. It really helped that I had the same classmates for all my classes, because it helped me adapt to the college environment better. IT was really great how I always had a classmate that I could go to for questions.
I also thought it was really great how Baruch has a tutoring center that you can go and get help on your homework. It really helped me with calculus

In all honesty, the leadership workshop wasn’t the awe-inspiring moment in my life where I finally realized that I should go out in the world and make a change right that instant, but I guess it did have its benefits at least. I’ve heard several presentations like this before, so it was somewhat of a generic motivator. I’m not too sure if I fully agree with what everything the professor described leadership as, but I do agree it’s important to have at least some leadership skills. It is necessary to know how to lead at times when people around you need one. So um, I actually took down notes during the presentation so:

• Talked about the cruise turn-over (bad leadership) and the hudson river airplane landing (good leadership)
• The building of the Brooklyn Bridge: Was the first suspension bridge
• John and Washington/Emily Roebling: died before it was finished
• Did something no else would have attempted even if no one thought it was possible=leaders
• Abraham Lincoln
• Goal: Wanted the country to stay together
• He put his president candidate rivals on his cabinet-only president to do this
• Wanted the best and the brightest
• He claimed the moment to be a leader when he realized that slavery is the problem of his generation
• Asked questions with other people:
• What makes a leader one? Can anyone be one?
• What kind of leadership roles in Baruch?
• Went to session with a intro and questioning of Baruch students and super-seniors who has some leadership quality/role to them
• Told us:
• Time management is important. Only way to balance leadership roles and academia. Should always put academics first b/c you are first and foremost a student.
• Join clubs to make long-lasting friends and network connections for internships and job-opportunities and leadership opportunities.
• Because your “freshman friends as your current clusters aren’t real friends”….since you won’t be seeing them much ever again….
• Residential Assistant…one of the jobs they were talking about. A lot of fraternities’ positions.
• Get involved in student life to make the most of Baruch and to put yourself ahead of others.

I found it interesting that there were so many super seniors still in Baruch. Are they just graduate students or are they real “super seniors”? I do agree that joining clubs really do help you in the long run to make friends, since I have experienced that in high school. It is sad that because Baruch is so big and the way classes are organized in college, it’s really hard to make long-lasting friends, so clubs really are the way to go.

And then there’s time management.

…let’s not get into that, eheheh…

Soo, student life. I’m not quite sure what exactly is “student life” even to this day, but I’m guessing whatever it is, it means more extracurricular activities pertaining to school. I would agree it would be a good thing to do, both for social/mental reasons and humanitarian reasons (…and resume reasons  //SHOT). It also reminded me that I should really get a job. Oh, the pains of growing up.