a.ahsan1 – Freshman Seminar Fall 17 CRA

Evil Incarnate (cough MTA)

I hate the 6. The 6 is the epitome of evil in the world today. Want to go to school 30 minutes early so as not to be late for calculus? Well too bad, train malfunctions! At every stop. Every. Stop. And not just a few seconds but rather tens of minutes because the MTA’s mission is to deliberately make everyone late. One could wonder what those train delays are that occur everyday, if there even is anything wrong with the subway. We see train systems in Japan, the United Kingdom, even in despotic countries such as Qatar that have little to no problems whatsoever running at the fraction of the MTA’s budget. Speaking of the budget, the MTA’s is 15 billion dollars. The MTA’s budget of 15 billion is equivalent to Zimbabwe’s GDP of 15 billion. It took 15 billion dollars for dictator Robert Mugabe to rule his country with an Iron fist suppressing his people. The MTA can literally fund a mercenary army to go to war with Zimbabwe. For more comparisons let’s look at the Apollo program which took 25 billion dollars to see through to its competition. If we can put men on the moon to further advance humankind for 25 billion dollars, there is no doubt in my mind that we can use 15 billion dollars to fix an underground subway that encompasses .0001% of earth’s surface area.

Rebels, Radicals, and Revolutionaries

Last Friday, for our English 2100 class, we visited the Whitney Museum. Professor Goodale, our English teacher, wanted us to pick a piece of art at the Whitney and make a critical analysis piece of it. We ascended the large elevator and arrived at the roof, taking a group picture as evidence of our visit. We dispersed to look at the various pieces of art at different levels of the museum and when I reached the 5^th floor I came across a bright-yellow room with bright-yellow blacks inscribed with black lettering. On the plaques were various past and present insurrectionist and rebel groups. The Irish Republican Army was placed next to the Kurdish Peshmerga which was above the FARC. It also included lesser known militant groups such as the Maluku Sovereignty Front and the Rashaida Free Lions. It was interesting seeing the various different extremist, separatist, and revolutionary groups from the cold war to the present lumped together in a single room. I did not know the exact purpose of the room at first, believing this was merely for historical purposes. However the more I thought about it, the more I realized the creator of the room was attempting to connect the various armed groups together in a way. I found it odd that the creator would attempt to connect terrorist groups in the middle east with separatist movements in South America, groups of which are divided by whole continents. Yet it did make sense in a way, both groups using weapons and violence to achieve an ultimate goal even though the ends are wildly different. Whether or not the creator seems to be fully agreeing to a connection with these movements; or attempting to spin us a question, it gives us a little insight in the armed conflict ever present in the world today.

You are definitely gonna see this picture a lot.

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative. — You are definitely gonna see this picture a lot.

Bloomberg. No not the former mayor.

Having a 5 hour long break between classes leaves a lot of free time for virtually anything. As me and my group of friends wandered around the campus we eventually ended up in the library’s first floor. On the right-hand side of the turnstiles, past a card swipe, was the Baruch stock trading floor which was currently hosting a workshop called “Bloomberg”. Bloomberg is a sort of stock-trading organizer/search bar/ multi-tool that allows the user to sell, buy, or check stocks. The advisor, after everyone settled in, started with the basics of booting up Bloomberg and explained to us what stocks are. Basically, stocks are the ownership and capital of a company. Depending on the market and how well the company does, they may rise or fall and the end-objective of playing the stock market is to buy at the lows and sell at the highs. You effectively become a cartoonish monopoly man albeit without a monocle. We were taught how to search for and monitor stocks in Bloomberg whilst also learning the many shortcuts and such to speed up the process. However, the keyboard we used was modified with keys specific to stock trading and even a few physical variations. The advisor then showed us how to monitor company performances which would give us indications on whether or not to buy and sell stocks. The workshop was incredibly confusing at times but had piqued some interest in me. I intend to major in finance and my first look more or less in the financial field had yielded a sort of competition to me. While everyone would love to be a “wolf of wall street” and get away with a 2008-esque financial crisis the technical aspects of finance, exposed to me by Bloomberg, has pushed me more into the financial field.

A visit to the Model United Nations Club

During the first week of September when all the clubs started to have official general interest meetings I decided to check out Baruch’s Model United Nations Club. Behind the game room inside the USG’s conference room was the United Nations flag draped over the USG’s emblem and a few members/onlookers already there. I had participated in the Model United Nations Club in High School and had hoped College-level Model United Nations would be the same. After the room filled up slowly we did an Icebreaker breaking up into four teams and arranging ourselves in a number of series such as height, birthdate, etc. It somewhat cooled the rigidness of the room and we started delving into what Model United Nations is. Officially Baruch has the Model United Nations team which is a part of the Model United Nations Club; the team goes from conference to conference acting out as the real United Nations roleplaying as their respective nations given to them to solve a world problem. It’s very similar to speech and debate but with the slight change in that you would represent a nation that has interests in the topic at hand. An example is if the U.S and Russia were represented in a topic about the contested Crimean region; the Russia delegate would refuse all attempts to cede the Crimea claiming it is Russian whereas the United States delegate would claim Crimea belongs to Ukraine. To add to that, in most conferences there are “Crisis Committees” or “Historical/Futuristic Committees” wherein delegates have the powers of their nations; they can assassinate other delegates, start wars, fund coups etc, but all within reason. Its not all fun and games in College Model United Nations however, the older members pointed out,

Application emails from the Model UN Team/Club given to those who attended the General Interest meeting on 9/7

as copious amounts of research are required to be at level with other highly competitive delegates and one must fully commit to Model United Nations. However that does not deter me and I fully intend to apply to the club.