My expectations for college weren’t all met. Going to college, I expected an easy grade and a fun time here.  I expected easy transition from high school to college. I expected many things, things that didn’t happen. This school was harder than expected. Getting those high grades wasn’t as easy as expected. I had to work a lot harder compared to the easy life I assumed was here. Transition from high school to college, however was a lot easier. I didn’t have to live a dorm life nor did I have to do anything out of the ordinary. It was the same life as high school, commuting for an hour to class. Right after I head to work and I head home when work ends. The same ol’ routine everyday. The social life is also much bigger than I expected. There are more clubs and things to do. Although I’m exploring my options now, I didn’t expect such a hard time to join a club. Baruch taught me that things are never as you expect and you should prepare for the unexpected.

Before Baruch, I didn’t know what to expect.

I was nervous, terrified even

As I walked up to Baruch.

My top priority was getting good grades

And I didn’t care about anything else.

I viewed college in the same way that I viewed high school:

As four years of school

Where you tried to get the best grades

In order to move on to the next step.

But I learned that college is much more than that.

College is what sets the stage for the rest of your life.

You meet new friends,

Get harder classes,

And work on building your resume.

This is the time where you have to choose your classes wisely,

Decide on a major,

And most importantly,

Manage your time wisely.

You have more freedom,

But also more responsibility,

And it’s your job to balance the two.

But in Baruch,

You’re not completely alone.

You have the SACC,

STARR,

A peer mentor,

And your peers

Who you can always reach out to.

So try to make the most of College,

Because you’re going to be here

For a while.

I honestly don’t know how, but Baruch has already helped me grow out of the shell I like to call, “my high school self.” In this brief period of time, I have managed to make more friends/connections than I expected, try new foods and activities that I wouldn’t see myself trying, and learned how to dress in a way that doesn’t make me look like a total schlump. I also learned something very important in my short-lived experience at Baruch so far… NEVER take an 8:15 a.m. class again, especially since I commute from bumblefuck Long Island every morning. I’ve been tardy several times, and even missed a couple of classes, throughout this semester because I regularly miss the early express train and have to wait 40 minutes for the next one to arrive. On behalf of all college kids who suck at waking up in the morning, I would just like to say that early morning classes are a giant pain in the ass. In all seriousness though, I learned to appreciate Baruch’s method of welcoming incoming freshmen into the community; and I’m referring to the Block system just in case it wasn’t clear. Thanks to the Block system, I have befriended some great, funny, intelligent people who I hope I stay in touch with as my exciting journey at Baruch continues.

College is a concept that I’ve been striving towards for as long as I could remember. It seemed that every decision I made in high school, regardless of how minuscule, incorporated the idea of looking desirable on a college app. My senior year was spent planning, applying, and then talking endlessly about future college plans with my peers. Because this has been such a far off idea for most of my life, it seems surreal that here I am, in college, taking on my future head on. I feel as though I’m supposed to say something positive I’ve learned about myself within these first few months of college. Yes I’ve adjusted fairly well to most of my classes, and yes I have tried to stay on top of things. But what I really want to talk about is that I’ve realized how much I suck at change. I viewed college as this great beacon of opportunity and growth for so long, but as I stand here the view is much different. The transition wasn’t great for me. It’s hard to change your scenery and friends so drastically in such a short amount of time. I loved and found comfort in the way my life was this past year, and letting it go made a part of me feel empty. However, two months in I can also say that I’m establishing a different life here at Baruch, one that I’m sure I’ll be missing four years from now. Everything seems so current. This is my future; right here and now. This is where I learn about myself and about who I’d like to become. It’s scary as hell, but most anything that is worthy or significant is.

Cranking this out minutes before its due, life of a procrastinator. Sometimes in the race life catches to up to me, sometimes I’m far ahead, sometimes I can taste the trail of dust I’m being left in and I know to take some sort of action. That’s when pressurized split second decisions make their best impact on me. I stand before all you sleepy distracted college students here today talking like the rest of us, about some experience, some thoughts, that make up out sort of clean version status update in life.

Hello world, my name is Azam Ali Khan and I am a traditional Indian musician who plays an instrument called the tabla, a drum played with your hands. I am a college student right now who wants to major in quote business, although whether that’s international studies, marketing, economics, or flyer distributing i have no damn idea. Funny, it feels like I sometimes live in multiple worlds, and now I’m here just to make a bridge stronger.

Even though I have a morning class, I still insist on waking up even earlier to practice music before I leave my house. Even though I have morning classes I’m still doing homework at the last minute, right before I sleep. I’m in college so I can get a job with a piece of paper I leave here with if I ever need to, but I’m still perusing a music career, but I’m also in college because our society has made this amazing city institution I can attend to do some paperwork and grow a little as a person out of it while having it still be affordable for my pocket. I don’t know if I’m destined for success, I’m not even sure if destiny is a real thing – whatever the path is I’m sure I’ll be just on time and improvise on the spot, something which as a musician Ive been forced to do on stage many times. Being put in situations like that makes you act, split second decisions and last minute preparations are the bane of a procrastinators existence.

As I look on ratemyprofessor for easy, fun, and hopefully attractive teachers and apply for my classes next semester, I have no idea whats going to happen and what I’m going to be able to get into. No clue where my music career will take me but I hope it makes me travel. No idea what my major will be but last minute decisions in Sophomore year await me. At least college has given my enough of a lesson that I’m doing some planning work and not standing in front of you all with a blank sheet of paper making all of this up, although it may sound like it, trust me I wrote this beforehand, seriously I did. How my late night last minute thoughts will play out with me reading this to you all today I have no idea, but I hope you all enjoyed this last minute mandatory status update.

College, it can be a huge transition for anyone. I thought that staying home for college would make that transition easier and yeah maybe it has, but nevertheless it’s still been a difficult journey. I feel like there’s so much more pressure to succeed and do well in classes, which is something, I honestly didn’t feel throughout high school. It’s a big fear of mine that I’ll fail and wont live up to my parent’s expectations or mine. They’ve been pushing me to do business for as long as I could remember and I’ve just kind of went with it. Business seems like a good and reasonable field of study I thought but is it really something I want to pursue for the rest of my life? Deciding to go to Baruch was a big step in the business direction. I’m excited for next semester so I could finally take business oriented classes and figure out if its something I really like or not. Baruch has many different options that don’t have to do with business, like Political Science and Chemistry, which I’m pretty interested in. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up going into one of those fields. As for now, I’m just going to try and manage my time well and do my best in the classes that I’m in now.

Recently a new chapter has opened up in my life unlocking newer possibilities for my future. As I transition from my 4 years of high school to college, bad habits still continue to occur such as sleeping late. I often doze off in class from the lack of sleep and boring lectures, but for some reason I dislike sleeping at night. As I start my college career, I will slowly correct them. Now my life is based on decisions, as each little decision will affect my career future of whom I want to be. Life questions I would ask myself are which is the best choice to make, major to choose, and classes to take. Along with these problems, living up to your parent’s expectation seems to be one of the hardest. As i confront challenges in areas such as questions on my math homework, there are those that help me pass the obstacles, which I am grateful for having them. After my 4 years at Baruch college, I hope to become the individual that I wish to become and coming out with a 3.8 GPA and a BBA.  Well, Best of Lucks to my future.

~Jeffrey Li

10 minutes late until English. 30 minutes left to send in my math assignment, but 60 minutes worth remains unfinished. Class starts early. The train is running late. Sociology professor throws me a disgruntled look as I walk in 5 minutes late. One assignment due tomorrow, and I think another may have been due late night. No time for breakfast today (or ever). No time for sleep either. No free time. No relaxing time. Just not enough time.

Go to class Monday through Thursday. Go to yoga (if there’s enough time this week). Volunteer Friday. Work Saturday and Sunday. Find time to do homework. Find time to study. Find time to see boyfriend, maybe family, and possibly friends. Oh! Sleep. If there is time enough, I have to sleep, but never later than until 8:30. And when Monday comes around again, repeat the process…and double the cups of coffee.

If I am not doing something productive with my time, then I feel that I am wasting it. If I have a free day, I see it as an empty space on my resume. But I try to put aside time for myself and for people that I want to spend my limited amount of free time with. The busy schedule I built for myself during Baruch forces me to prioritize and cut out many extraneous activities, so even though I have very little free time now, I make sure to spend it wisely; in the right way and with the right people. I’m just having trouble finding balance. Baruch is putting my time management skills to the ultimate test, even outside the reaches of the school.

Life at Baruch is really a game of juggling. Starting out as a freshmen at Baruch, I feel like I came in walking freely with no weight. Though I haven’t been here for long, I feel as though weight is starting to pile on me. The first jug was thrown on me: Workload. For me, I see Baruch as a relatively small college compared to others. But smaller classes means the teacher is more attentive to individuals and actually have time to give out meaningful work unlike all tests on scantrons and etc. The amount of work that you have to do may vary for different classes, but ultimately it’s a scary thought knowing that professors don’t really care about your well-being and can potentially overload you with work, since that is in their power. The second jug is work. I started a new job shortly upon entering Baruch, in an environment that I’m not familiar with. There were and still are many things that I don’t know how to do, and dedicating time to learn and work at this job was initially a challenge. How am I suppose to balance workload and work at the same time? Could I continually throw both up, without fail of catching them? Eventually, I did get the hang out it and was able to balance them both without too much of a struggle. As I stand before you today, I am balancing the third but not final jug that has been thrown to me, as of late: social life. It’s great that I had friends coming into Baruch, but there are also many other unique individuals to meet at this great institution. There are clubs that people join to mutually express interest, “sisterhoods” and “brotherhoods” that you can become a part of, so how really do you lose sight of people you use to know with people that you will know? This jug seems to be making things difficult for me, but worse, it seems to be taking balance away from my other jugs too.

“Poor guy” I thought to myself, watching the student proctor aimlessly stare into his computer waiting for me finish the math assessment. All the other incoming freshman students had finished their assessment and left over thirty minutes ago. I had arrived earlier to ensure I would have a copious amount of time to solve all the problems correctly. However, here I was, the last student in room surrounded by computers with a sweating brow. I thought about how the proctor probably needed to be somewhere and I was just holding him up. Fuck it. I couldn’t endure the torture of my own anxiety and embarrassment. I randomly selected answers to the rest of the questions, logged out, and quickly left with my head down.

“Poor guy” I thought to myself, as I watched from the corner of my eye, the anxious incoming freshman struggling with his math assessment. He must feel so ashamed and embarrassed since he’s the last student in the room; he shouldn’t worry about it. I don’t have anywhere to be, in fact this has given me some time to focus on my homework…I wonder why he’s clicking so much. I should go tell him to take his time and relax…Oh I guess he’s done. I sheepishly smiled at him as he walked out of the computer room with his head down.