So this was my final event that i needed to attend for Freshman Seminar. This was an academic workshop that concentrated on using the Newman Library’s resources and data bases for professional research. We navigated the website and tried out different topics, books, and authors to find scholarly books and articles to use for research papers. This was especially helpful because I have to do a 5-6 page research paper for English and from this workshop I have learned how to find scholarly sources and how to narrow down my searches in order to find the information that i need for my paper. We also went on another website called JSTOR that provides scholarly journals and articles. Baruch provides access to this website so you must be connected to the Baruch wifi. I tried to use the website myself at the workshop to get an idea of what I will be using for my research paper. It was very beneficial. At the end we discussed some things about Google Scholar, other databases, and even got into the issue of “predatory journals.” Overall it was a pretty beneficial workshop and I am glad that I had the opportunity to attend this session.

I payed a little visit to the writing center to get some help on writing essays since writing essays is not my strong point. I did not make an appointment but I remembered that you are able to do walk-ins. The only downside is that the walk-ins are only allowed 30 minutes in the writing center. I sat down and was paired up with someone quickly and got straight to work. I always have trouble with starting my essay and writing my thesis. I told this to the helper and he completely understood and made me feel comfortable around him. It didn’t feel as if he was a instructor or tutor, but rather it felt like he was a friend who was just trying to help me out. He helped me plan out how to write my thesis and start my essay and gave me these little tips that were given to him. Not only did this help me start my essay, but it also showed me more weak points that I have. I realized that I sometimes write too much and put too much detail into one body when I should really be spreading it through out the essay. It was only thirty minutes, but within these thirty minutes, I learned almost as much as I would’ve in one semester of English. I not only strengthen my weaknesses, but also discovered new ones. The thirty minutes felt real fast but at the same time, super productive. It was really a great experience and gave me more confidence when it comes to writing these essays. I was skeptical about this since I thought the helpers would just half-ass their job, but it really turns out that they do care about helping you. I really look forward to going back and learning more in order to write better essays.

On Friday, November 17, I went to the museum for the academic blog post. This day was definitely an adventure, a memorable one. I went with my best friend, who also had to go because his art class was taking a “college field trip.” So we decided to go together. I spent the morning with him at BMCC which is the school he attends. Around 11:30am, we made our way to The Metropolitan Museum of Art which is one of the world’s largest art museums. His cousin met us there because he decided to take the day off from school.

The museum is so big that it would be exhausting to walk through it and see everything in one day. There definitely was a lot of art to see which we did not.

We got to the museum a little late so his class had already started the tour. So when we got there, we had to find his class which seemed impossible due to how big the museum is. After maybe 10 minutes of zooming through exhibits, we finally found his class. I guess in class they were learning about Japanese art because the tour was only of Japanese art. Some of the art that we seen was interesting. I really liked the handscroll art pieces because they told a story and they were impressive.

Throughout the whole tour, my best friend’s cousin had us laughing the whole time. He really is a clown. Visiting the Met was definitely an experience. I was glad that I went because if I did not go then my best friend would not have went for his class. So we basically killed two birds with one stone. Visiting the Met is something that I would do again because I would like to see all that the museum offers.

(I almost dropped the painting in this picture)

Walking towards the room where the event was going to take place I did not know what to expect. This was the first I was actually going to take part in a school activity that was gonna be beneficial to my future. Which to me was kind of a shocker. This was the first time I’m able to see the numerous offers that Baruch offers to students for success. As I entered the room there was a great amount of students there also for the help that Baruch offers for the future of the students. I sat down with a couple of students whom I never seen before and it made me think, this is how business is going to be like on my own, meeting people whom I have not even talked to or even seen in my life but it made me feel comfortable that I was able to talk and like feel good about participating with people who I never met before from the school. I had an international business major at my table and she was explaining more to what she does and the experiences and trainings that she had to go through with her area of expertise. It was interesting to hear about all the work there is behind it to be the area of expertise she was in and it made me question mine. How much I would have to do to be a part of . I always had an eye to do international business but after hearing this from her, it made me consider it even more. I always thought I was going to be a finance major my whole life but going to this career event it made me open my eyes that maybe finance isn’t something I want to do fully or maybe consider to be an international business major. I will be attending more career fairs in the long run as my time at Baruch. I see these events starting to be more helpful as I soon begin to realize how hard college is and how important it is and how much time and effort you need to put in, into the area of expertise you would like to be in.

On Thursday November 16, 2017 I attended the marketing career expo. It was held in one of the larger conference rooms on the 14th floor of the Newman Vertical Campus from 12:30 to around 2:00 p.m. Signing up for the event was stressful, as the STARR Search website proved more difficult to navigate than i expected, and ended up on the wait list for the event. There were so many students up there, but luckily everyone on the wait list got to go into the event and participate.

Before going to this event, I knew I was considering marketing as a career choice, but I quickly learned that there is more that goes into it than I had anticipated. The biggest surprise to me was that after hearing the introductory presentation from 2 Baruch professors, I leaned more towards advertisement than marketing. I got the chance to talk to two professionals at the table I was sitting at. One of them was a Baruch alumni working in public relations and was surprised that it actually caught my attention. Being the only freshman at my table, and one of few at the event as a whole was intimidating, but the recruiters admired the fact that I was starting early in getting a leg up and gaining more of an idea on what I would decide to pursue when the time came in a few years.

Regardless of the fact that I really don’t know what I will be doing  few years from now, i’m glad I got to go to this event. I learned that it is never too early to get involved, and to start racking up internships as soon as possible. Experience, research, and passion are what sell you to a potential employer. This may be common knowledge, but recruiter’s stressed the importance of making a good impression and always triple checking and keeping your resume up to date and plentiful. You can never sell anything more important than yourself.

On November 16, 2017 I attended a career workshop for the first time. I had to sign up using the Starr Career Development Center which was a really confusing process. It took me a while to find where to sign up because every time i tried to search it up in events, nothing would come up and I had to get a fellow classmate to send me the link to where the signed up. Overall, the process for trying to sign up for one of these events was more work than it needed to be and I expected it to be easier than anything since this is an important thing that many Baruch college students should attempt to attend during their four years. I was immediately placed o n the waitlist and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make it in the workshop.

However, when I showed up, they gladly let me in and I was able to attend the workshop. When i entered the room, which was a little difficult to find since it was on the 14th floor of the new building, which I’ve never been to and didn’t even know existed, I saw a whole bunch of recruiters and many professional looking people ready to present and tell us about marketing. It was a huge conference room with at least 15 tables. This was a particularly interesting workshop for me since I’ve actually been considering being a marketing major. They talked about the steps to getting a career in marketing and the ranges of the types of careers in this field. It really opened my mind up to new possibilities to what I could choose from.

Afterwards, they had an open network session where you could try out networking with recruiters and talk about possibilities into future internships and such. I sadly didn’t stick around for this part because internships or networking isn’t on my mind yet since this is only my first semester in Baruch. However, if I ever attend another Marketing Career Expo in the future, I would definitely stick around for the networking portion.

I went to a play called the castle. This was a play that was hosted in the Baruch theatre and they had 4 people come in for the play. The unique part of this play is that these 4 people did not actually act, they actually sat down in front of us. Now the best part of this play is that it is an actual story. These are 4 people that were in prison for multiple different reasons but were given another chance. Now they start off and share their story. Another great part of the play is that they don’t tell their story individually. They each stop in the middle of their story and then let another person speak. This was vital in making this such a good play because throughout we were trying to figure out what the next part of their story would be.

So as the play continued I was awestruck at the hard life that many of them had to face. I knew life for many people was hard, yet as I listened to them more, I was shocked by how difficult it truly was. Many of them were put in place where they were the sole providers of their family. One of the men had actually shot someone and had to kill someone just to provide for his family. This just brings up how this person was actually forced into such a position. While one woman was put into such a life not because she needed to do something bad to provide for the family but because of how she felt. The fact that Baruch hosted such a play shows that just because it is being held in Baruch, does not mean it is cheap or bad. This play talked about many issues that are occurring when it came to underfunded parts of states.

 Earlier this afternoon I chose to attend Baruch’s Performing Art Center’s presentation of Shakespear’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Just getting the tickets was an adventure and a half. Not that it was at all a complicated process, but everything is harder when you lose your wallet for an hour. Thank God I found it just in time to slide into one of the last available seats just before the play began. I was honestly surprised by the turnout. The “theatre” in the 17 Lex building is not at all what you would call large but it was jam-packed. In any case, I took my seat and the production began. The set and costume design were modern, which made the play all the more interesting. I had read  A Midsummer Night’s Dream in high school, and it was one of my favorite plays, probably due to the fact that everyone doesn’t end up dead at the end of it. But hearing Shakespearian language being so eloquently delivered from a dude in a tennis outfit with a New York accent is slightly jarring and most definitely changes your perspective of the piece. Especially when the said actor later appears dressed up like a Prince impersonator, and finally like the Godfather. Throughout the play, I was quite impressed by the actors’ enthusiastic delivery of lines that had seemed so dull on paper. The musical choices, including “I’m the Dude”  were amusing. My favorite character was Helena, played by Elizabeth Elkind. Her lines were made all the more hilarious by her facial expressions and movements. Of all the cast her character was, in my opinion, the most relatable. Overall I enjoyed the play. It greatly exceeded my original low expectations and I know now that I should not underestimate the Performing Arts Center’s capabilities. After the show, I was able to meet Leslie Ivery, depicted above. She played the part of both Hippolyta and Titania and executed both roles beautifully.

So the two people who led this workshop were Senesi Blake who is an awesome guy, who actually sat with us through the whole one hour and thirty minutes and the other girl was Karen. Man, Karen is annoying, she tells everyone in the room that she will be back at the end of the workshop and then she will sign our books. That’s not the problem though. She said with such attitude, it drove me crazy. How you going to leave and then come back at the to sign our books. Man I was so annoyed.

But anyways, im going to stop talking irrelevant kArEn. Overall, the LinkedIn Profile Development was a very informative workshop. At first, I saw the presentation had over twenty slides and I was pretty discouraged already but I learned about just how beneficial LinkedIn can be. Some of the things he covered was how LinkedIn is sort of like a professional Facebook, you can follow companies and people, people can leave a recommendation for you under your profile and it looks like a Facebook comment, and that the summary is an extended part of who you are and every sentence you type should be focused on getting a specific internship or job.

It’s really cool how easily you can connect and find people on LinkedIn, you can like search for Baruch Alumni who work at J.P Morgan or Morgan Stanley and just tell them who you are and give them a reason to connect with you. Honestly, I don’t see a reason not to connect with every Baruch alumni you find on LinkedIn, except for Karen of course. You can connect with so many people who are in different industries and create a detailed network for yourself. The LinkedIn workshop was a pretty informative workshop and I definitely walked out with a lot of good information, and a signature by Senesi, not Karen glt.

Yesterday I attended a career workshop for the final blog post. It was a meeting of a group at Baruch called the PRSSA and this specific meeting was entitled ‘Going Solo’. The event was held yesterday (Tuesday) and was on the fourth floor, it was at twelve thirty. It was a pretty small event not to many people were there, there may have been around twenty five students there. The actual people holding the event seemed to be very much into it there were about six or seven people there who were not students but either presenters or part of the PRSSA. To be entirely honest I thought the event was sort of mundane. But some people there did seem to get a lot out of the whole thing. The event was centered around PR and maybe that is the reason why I did not find it to be that interesting being that I am an economics major. There were two people who spoke who are part of the PRSSA and then there were three business owners who spoke who of course were not part of the PRSSA, one of the business owners was actually a Baruch graduate. The event lasted to about one forty five. Two of the speakers at the event talked a little too quietly it was tough to hear them, even though we were in a small room, it was not a lecture hall it was a room similar to the Freshman Seminar classroom. I went to this meeting as sort of a last minute thing, I went with two of my friends. I had forgotten my Freshman Seminar Workbook at home so I just took down a signature on a pain sheet of loose leaf paper. All together I do not think I will be attending another PRSSA meeting.