Author: r.berdugo

Thursday the 16th I and a few classmates attended the Baruch Hillel’s tech startup fair in the multipurpose room. The meat and potatoes of the event was a panel consisting of representatives of various tech startups that was organized by the Hillel. The event took me a bit by surprise, as I didn’t know it was being held until I stumbled into the line, but the speakers of the panel approached the audience like they were more than just students, and afterwards accepting cover sheets at their respective booths.

One of the focuses of the panel’s discussion was the pointlessness of creating a mobile app these days. They said that the market for mobile apps is very unforgiving and there’s an extremely high “buy-in” price for newcomers that is continuously rising. They drove the point home by quizzing the audience about their interactions with mobile apps today, making the case that while advertising for apps is at an all-time high, actual downloading of said apps is decreasing.

Funnily enough, another recurring discussion point was the uselessness of college, more specifically how all of the success they’ve achieved was directly from on-job experience.

Something else that came up was how successful bitcoin is doing, as at the time the price per coin was approaching $9000.

There were more than a few interesting companies that spoke at the panel, and most importantly the experience overall left me with a sense of confidence in Baruch’s ability as a school to help bring potential employment opportunities to its students. I definitely will head to more career fairs in the future.

This past weekend my little cousins were in town and I decided to take care of five birds with one stone by taking them to the Met. This worked for this assignment, one for History class and 2 other extra credits, so you know I made those kids look at some paintings and sculptures form years they didn’t know even existed.

 

Anyway, while going around the museum completing my assignments I learned some very interesting things, specifically the methods of naval transportation for ancient Egyptians. Did you know that ancient Egyptians had a different boat for just about everything done on the water? There were specific boats for fishing, transport, sport, leisure and much more. The Met had scale recreations of these boats on display in their ancient Egyptian wing, as well as the papyrus scrolls which described and portrayed the boats themselves to make any recreation possible.

 

Along with the Egyptian wing we visited an exhibit on the very best of the Modernist movement, which featured such famous painters as Georgia O’Keefe, Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso. Many well known paintings were featured in the exhibit, but my favorite was the View from the Williamsburg Bridge by my favorite painter, Edward Hopper. I loved the way Hopper captured the lighting of the east side of Manhattan. Ever since I was a kid I was a big fan of the Modernist movement in the 1950s. Seeing many of the paintings I had grown up looking at in my picture books was a pleasant coincidence on a day where I was just supposed to look at ancient art for a school assignment.

 

Much like Maragaret-May, on September Eleventh I visited the Baruch Hillel to attend their Memorial Service in remembrance of the terrorist attack in 2001. We discussed the impact of the attacks on our lives with the others attending. A minute of silence with lit candles was held for a Baruch graduate, named Marina, who died in the South Tower while at work. She was on the 101st floor when the plane hit.

I’ve had a family member killed by terrorists, and hearing about her story reminded me of my own experience with the horrors that accompany the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

Marina’s memory is preserved not only by the annual memorial service at the Hillel, but also by a scholarship in her name by her parents, which offers money and mentorship to one Russian Jewish girl each year.

This was my first time going to a meeting in the Hillel, but I could immediately tell that I’ll be returning. The members of the Hillel care greatly about each and every visitor and their message of community resonates strongly.