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.

As I find myself exploring a new chapter of my life, I ended up in The City That Never Sleeps. It seems that this new chapter is very foreign to me; I mean I spent 15 years of my life in the quite suburbs of Long Island. Coming to the city means that I am in a new environment and completely independent for the very first time. No one is here to constantly look over my actions, making sure I don’t do anything too stupid. No one is there reminding me to do the days readings or to do my homework. I have no one to ask, “What’s for dinner?” All this newfound responsibility falls onto my plate. I found myself learning skills no college course can teach me, like cooking and cleaning. Then I quickly discovered the differences between high school and college. Professors are not going to chase me down if I don’t do an assignment, it will just be reflected in my course grades. No one is here to coddle me along. College isn’t going to get easier and will most likely involve countless hours studying in the library and many late nights completing assignments. There will be times were I will just want to give up in the midst of a challenge, but that’s when it becomes an obstacle. I look forward to confronting these future challenges on my way to get a 3.8 GPA and to expand my horizons as an individual. In my four years at Baruch, I hope to hone the skills necessary for my career and life.

Sincerely

Gavin Li

Everyone says that college is very hard
Back then, I just want to finish high school and move on
Didn’t expect college to be too stressful
But now, I don’t even know which major to choose upon

I have always wanted to do accounting
But is that what I really want?
I kept asking myself that same question
The answer is I don’t know but I’m only a freshman

Let’s not think too far ahead
I should concentrate on right now
This semester is almost ending
We have to pick classes for next year, but how?

It’s impossible to make a perfect schedule
Times for the classes are all over the place so I better be careful
My friends had already made back-up plan
But I only just began

Required core, flexible core
And 10 more pre-business classes
With major and minor courses
I will be stuck in school for ages

You also need 150 credits for accounting
How will I even have time for breathing?
I should also get that CPA
Alongside with that BBA

It’s scary to think about all that work
What if I still do bad with all my effort?
There is a long road ahead of me
And what lies in the future seems very blurry

But I realize that there is no use worrying
I should just try to do well in every class
Even if nothing turns out right
I should stay strong like crystal glass

Transitioning from high school to college caused a shift in my life. In the past, I walked ten minutes to school, now it can take me up to two hours just to get to Baruch. This switch in commute requires me to wake up at five or six in the morning to begin the ride to Baruch. A long commute has made me learn that I have to focus a lot of time management. Since most of my day consists of my commute, with the time I have left I try to do all my homework as soon as possible. In college, we use a syllabus for each class. This can help me plan ahead for papers or tests. Along with handling homework and tests we have gained the responsibility of registering and choosing classes. Having a variety of classes, we are able to take classes that are required and different classes that may interest us. I have also found the diversity of clubs we have in Baruch that we can join so we can do things in our free time that we may enjoy. For me, joining a clubs can help me make more  friends and meet new people that can help me out in different ways. Making the switch between high school and college was a big step, but being in college brings me a step closer to getting to know who I am as a person and can also assist me in becoming a responsible adult.