I believed this was the most interesting one out of the three events I had to attend. I went to a STARR Career Development Center today called “Going Solo” which featured three guest speakers who are all founders of companies. The free food really helped brighten up the environment because I was expecting to starve until 3 since it took a while to finally find an interesting workshop like this. We had Jenna Guarneri, a Baruch graduate who is the found of the JMG Public Relations. She talked about how when you work in public relations you should always be at your A game and that you should have a set of skills ready for when you graduate to go out and find a job. She also told us about how much work she had to put in during her school year like working 7 days a week and told us it is going to be tough in the beginning but in the end it’s worth it as she started her own company. Melissa Daly, the found of MFD Communications worked at Goldman Sachs, a place I know most Baruch finance students want to work at. She told us that writing skills and communication skills are really important and that is what most employees are looking for. Steve Rose, the founder of the Rose Group said that he founded his company during the economic bubble which was extremely hard because of the bad economy. He told us about the struggles he faced and that his family was there to back him up to finally open up a company. Before this workshop, I focused mostly in majoring in Finance but after this, I found marketing and public relations to be more interesting and may take a look at those majors too. This workshop has made me feel more confident if I ever want to open up my own company thanks to the advice given.

P.S. I forgot to bring my handbook so I had to make do with this.

Today, on October 10, I attended the Writing Center Workshop where the topic was Controlling an Argument with Topic Sentences. Upon entering, I was expecting a huge room with dozens of students since it was a workshop. However, there were only about 8 of us in the room which was actually a positive thing since the consultant could have a one on one conversation with you. We were presented by an enthusiastic consultant who was luckily not just a boring old writing teacher which made the workshop more fun to work at. She gave us three paper that talked about model topic sentences and we had to break down the topic sentences and show why they are considered to be model. Next, on the other paper, we had to identify the type of topic sentences that was provided. I learned that the thesis they provided had not just one but three types of ways the author presents their thesis. We learned that the thesis helped analyze the rhetorical functions of figurative language + personification, that it identifies the effects of the reader, and that it complicates the reading by revealing a counterintuitive pattern. The consultant also gave us advice that any good essay on poetry should always show how the poem affects the reader. On the third paper, we had to find out how the previous topic sentences we worked on related to the thesis. After that, we had to explain how they relate to the other paragraphs. This workshop was really helpful in assisting me as I have always had trouble connecting or writing topic sentences that relate to the thesis. I would always either have a good thesis but bad topic sentences or a bad thesis with good topic sentences. I plan to go to more workshops in the writing center in the near future as I have to write an 8 page essay for my writing class even though I have never written more than 3 before.

Honestly, last week I couldn’t find any activities to do for this blog as none of the clubs really interested me. That is, until I heard loud music coming from below while I was on the 6th floor. I just had to find out what was going on because I needed an event I was interested in. When I came to the 2nd floor lobby my eyes glanced around and saw tons of people crowded around at this huge event. It obviously grasped my attention and the event was just starting. There were a number of huge flags and the big words “LATINX HERITAGE MONTH” was pasted on a huge banner which I was sure nobody could miss. As a person who learned Spanish and Latin American culture for three years in high school and passed with flying grades, this was an event I decided I must attend. I haven’t touched Spanish in about two years but coming to this event reminded me of the fun times I had in Spanish class with the music, food and of course games and movies. The most memorable part about this event was when the people in the front were dancing and when new people were told to come up, everyone scattered. Food was great too, as I have always rejected eating plantains throughout my life but I felt I just had to try them. It exceeded my expectations and of course I had to get some empanadas. After experiencing an event like this I would gladly visit more cultural events throughout the year as I am a huge fan on exploring new cultures and life. This event has also brought more interest in joining a club for me because if there are more events like this at clubs, I might just start looking around for one to join soon.