Last Thursday I attended Baruch Voices, a spoken word event for the freshman class of Baruch College. Students from each freshman seminar class presented monologues they had composed themselves to their classmates and two people from each class were voted to present at this event. When I arrived, the entire room was packed so I stood with a friend among a crowd of students standing along the sidelines. The monologues presented were lyrical, captivating and some of them were very deep and personal. One of my favorites was by a girl presenting her piece called “God’s Grace”. It was about her the negative feedback she and her parents received from relatives and family friends about her decision to go to college in New York City, rather than in Hong Kong where her family lives. The comments were rude and unsupportive (and some of them quite sexist) but fortunately she had the support of her parents who believed that she could come here and be successful without falling into the fallacy of losing her culture or becoming “too American”. Another monologue that I like was a guy who presented a list of things he didn’t like. His list ranged from his cat who was too lazy and should “get a job” to guys who hold their audiences hostage and rant about things they don’t like. It served as a much needed comedic relief as a lot of the monologues presented were, while poetic and inspiring, quite depressing. The one thing I did regret about going to Baruch Voices was that it everyone was not able to present their pieces, including the two students voted from our freshman seminar class, Kenechi and Ashaki. Overall it was a very pleasant and entertaining experience and I am glad I attended 🙂

Last week I attended a workshop that was aimed to help its participants master the job interviewing process. This workshop was an advanced course and due to scheduling many were not able to participate in the preceding course “Mastering the Job Interview: Basic”. The instructor however made the workshop easy to understand whether you attended a previous course or not. While he had a Power Point presentation and gave out packets with more information, he also gave in depth details about what he was talking about and gave personal examples to further explain his point. The information he gave in his presentation was very helpful, and certain things were actually quite surprising. Overall,I am grateful that I attended and will definitely use this information to succeed in any job or internship interviews I may have in the future.

As a student who aspires to be sucessful in college, as well as in life,  I understand that I must change certain habits and adopt new ones in order to achieve these goals. A college environment and the expectations of college students are different and most times more demanding than those of high school students; therefore I cannot expect to carry the same habits from high school into college and expect the same results. In addition to setting aside time for assignments and studying, keeping an always-updated schedule of classes and events, and making sure that I even make it to my classes (on time), I also decided to learn more about how I learn things.

The V.A.R.K. questionnaire, located in our Freshman Seminar handbooks, gives students the opportunity to assess their own learning style(s) and discover which techniques will be the most likely to help them in their academic careers. Based on the frequency of certain types of responses to the multiple choice questions given, the learning preferences of the respondent is determined. After tallying up my scores, and researching the results, I discovered that I identify as being a Reading/Writing (R) and Kinesthetic (K) learner. This means that making lists, taking notes, and reading texts, as well as role-playing  situations, doing practical exercises, and using the trial and error method are most likely to benefit me in my classes, and as a student overall. I am glad that I completed this quiz because it gave me a better understanding of the type of student that I am, as well as what I can do to become a better one. I will be sure to apply the suggestions that I found to my school work and hopefully I will see positive results!