Freshman Seminar Fall '17 CWC

Ben Haghani

Student Life Blog Post

I was never the type of person to participate in school activities or clubs. Well I was in high school but only when I had time during school. Not on my own free time. I was always very busy and always had something to do, which was mandatory. So I had no idea what club to go to or where the clubs were so I went with a friend. She took me to a club called tamid. Tamid is a business oriented club, which was great for me because I love learning about money! They occasionally hold panelist discussions with entrepreneurs and actually had an entrepreneur speak at the Hillel the other day which was followed by a networking event. I do not remember the entrepreneurs name which means he probably was not so big but it was still cool that they actually had someone come speak. Tamid is also a club in other schools such as Yeshiva University, Columbia and New York University. Experiencing a club at Baruch was much different from high school in regards to professionalism. Clubs at my high school were run by students who only ran the club because it looked good on their resume. Very few people were actually passionate about the club. Baruch is different. Based off the one club I went to, it seemed as if the leaders actually cared about the club and put effort into running it.

Ben Haghani

Academic Blog Post:

This past week I attended a workshop at the SAC tutoring center for my mathematics 2300 class. I thought I would fly through pre-calc because I took it in high school but now I realized I cannot because I never payed attention in class. My tutor for the afternoon was unexpectedly really helpful. Math class has been very stressful and rigorous so far so this is exactly what I needed. We went over my previous test and I learned a lot from him. I would have taken a picture but honestly I attended the workshop before even looking at the assignment sheet for our second blog. It is really nice how these older students in the school take there free time to help tutor us freshman in subjects that are giving us difficulty. The whole environment at SAC is great and everyone is really caring and helpful. I asked the front desk workers about 15 questions before signing up and they kindly helped me and didn’t get annoyed or frustrated by any of it. If it were me I would have started giving some attitude after the 5th question, but they were very nice. Overall, my experience at SAC was great and definitely really helpful so I am definitely going to continue to go and learn some more from the tutors there.

On November 9th, I attended the Majors and Minors Fair at Baruch. The fair was filled with tables with representatives of alot of different majors and minors that Baruch offered. The representatives all were every welcoming and willing to answer any questions that the students  would ask about their major or minor. The more popular major tables such as Accounting, Finance and Management were crowned . Some of the tables had a few representatives who are teachers of the class for that major or minor. Getting a chance to talk to actual teachers and build a relationship before enrolling in that. They also explained  what courses you needed to be finished in order to have the correct credits to graduate.

I felt that this Major and Minors Fair helped me better understand the path I have to take to complete my major and what minor would best fit with my major. After attending the fair I went home and changed my Three Plan for Baruch College. I would advise students to attend the fair. If you don’t know what major you want to take the fair can help you and you can get advice from people that are in that field. Even if you know what major you want to attend you should still attend the fair because you’re able to learn more about your major and get important information about minors.

I recently attended the Career Workshop here at Baruch. It was really cool to see all types of employers engaging with students. I spoke to people from Santander Bank and Wells Fargo. Banking is a big interest of mine even though I am not trying to pursue that at the moment. As a freshman there weren’t many job opportunities, but I was thrilled to be speaking to professionals who work at such large companies. Every person I went up to gave me advice on how to find jobs and went into great detail about what they actually do at the company they work for. I also learned how important it is to have a good, presentable resumé when applying for jobs. All the advice and knowledge I learned will definitely help me in the future when I am applying for jobs. I am so grateful I attend a school and live in a city where there are so many opportunities to succeed. This workshop opened my eyes to the real world and I couldn’t be more excited!

Last week, I went to a Career Workshop hosted by the South Asian Student Association (SASA). The workshop consisted of a Resume writing workshop, taking headshots as well as successfully using a LinkedIn profile.

The first thing I learned was that my resume was sub-par in comparison to others. I was lucky enough to recieve help from a fellow SASA member, Lav Patel. Patel was able to provide me with various pointers on how to improve my resume. Most of the advices were pretty simple, but often overlooked. He informed that for every bullet point you have, it should start with “aggressive” verbs, meaning verbs that grab the employers attention, as well as include some sort of number in the bullet point. For example, instead of saying, “Helped kids with homework at my local library,” something more impactful would be, “Assisted students of  grades 5th-12th with math,science and english asssignments at my local library.”
Also, using lines to separate sections in your resume looks more professional than white space, as well as it “fills up” your resume, for lack of better words. Something that is often forgotten is that your personal information should be the biggest font size than anything else on the paper. Overall it is the minute details that can make the difference of you becoming a potential employee at a multi-million dollar company, or the guy they will “call in a few days.” I was surprised that this workshop took no longer than 15 minutes, but in those 15 minutes I learned some valuable information that will help me out in the long run. I can not wait to attend my next Career Workshop.

On November 9th, I attended the Baruch and Beyond Education Roundtable event. Although I don’t have a strong interest in pursuing a career in the field of education, I chose to attend this event out of sheer curiosity.  I figured attending the event would serve to test my interests and career path, and I’m glad I did. Students would rotate between five different roundtables during the event, where they would engage in conversations with former Baruch students with careers in education. After speaking to some Baruch graduates, I quickly learned that they were very passionate about their lines of work. Not to mention, I learned that education is a much larger field than I initially thought. I met graduates there with careers in areas ranging from classroom education, digital education, early college education programs, scholarship programs, and more. At the last roundtable I met Andrew Scrivani, a creative professional who’s worked with Adobe and the New York Times. He is a photographer and director, and he teaches online photography classes. He gave me some insight as to how he turned his creativity into a profession and offered some inspiring advice. I also met some students at the event. With students coming from various social and ethnic backgrounds, the event accommodated Baruch’s diverse student body very well. Some students were in their first year like me, while others were well established at Baruch and graduating in the spring. However, both the current students and alumni had a story and a plan. Their stories explained how they got to their current position, while their plans outlined their preparations for the future. Although many of the graduates had stable jobs and financial freedom, many were still hungry to do more. This showed me that life is about progress, and that growth is a good measure of success.

This fall, I attended the career fair in the Baruch gym. There were adults, students, and professionals alike, trying to give their best impression to potential employers. Being a freshman, most employers explicitly stated there was no opportunity for me with them; however, it was a learning experience. I really got to see what these employers were looking forward too and I even managed to impress a few before I told them my age. Examples of employers I spoke to were Bank of America, Citibank, the SEC, etc. Each booth I went to I learned something new and I even got a water bottle out of it. Something I realized was exactly how important a resume is. I had the basic Word template resume that looked horrendous. When I saw my friends’ resumes, I realized I had to improve. That same night I went to the library and completely revamped it. Overall, even though I didn’t get a career out of the career fair, I think it made me better equipped for the near future when employers will take me seriously.

As an incoming freshman in college, one of the main goals I wanted to achieve was being able to join clubs that I’m interested in and would commit to. Lucky within Hillel at Baruch, I stumbled upon EMET. On one of our sessions today (Nov. 8^th), I got the honor of being one of the “Hillel at Baruch’s” 25 students to attend the evening of “Inspiring Jewish Greatness” event with a guest appearance of Naftali Bennett, the Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Education. The event was presented by Olami, which is a worldwide network of Jewish outreach efforts aiming to inspire a meaningful connection to Judaism. Naftali Bennett, also known as the Minister of the Jews, was the guest of honor and touched on topics within our culture and people. This event allowed me to be able to introduce myself to a number of new people and interact with students from different schools. It was amazing to see how open everyone was towards each other and it made me feel as if the environment around me was light and joyful. In addition to all of this, the three-course meal that was provided for guests was delicious! Bennett touched upon many topics such as the fact that it is important to unite as a religion in order to prosper and positively reinforce the world around us. Bennett had this presence on stage that allowed him to resonate and connect with every person in the audience in hopeful and beautiful way. I felt the great deal of positive energy for this event the entire night. This was an inspiring and memorable event that allowed me to feel connected to my religion and I am certainly thankful for getting this opportunity to meet highly renowned leaders. I look forward to more EMET session this Thursday.

On November 8th, I attended a workshop called “Small Talk: It’s a BIG Deal!” The workshop started off with the presenter, Elen Stein going around the room and shaking everyone’s hand. We soon found out that her partner canceled last minute but she tried her best. She first had us partner with the person across with us and attempt small talk while trying to fill out a worksheet we were given. Our goal was to fill the worksheet with names of people who had the same zodiac, took the same transportation, had the same graduation date, etc. Unfortunately, we never managed to fill them out as she quickly moved on to scenarios.

My group chose to act out a worker at JP Morgan and a stranger who wants to work there on a delayed train. However, everything quickly dissolved into hysterics when I, the JP Morgan worker, told him(the stranger), that I was going to the Bronx and he replied that he was going to Queens. With my (rather limited and confused) knowledge of the MTA, I asked him how he was going to Queens when I was going to the Bronx and we just started laughing. I realize now that we could have been taking some uptown train out of Manhattan.

Elen, as she told us to call her by her first name, asked for a volunteer to perform a scenario with her, and I, fueled by my hysterics, volunteered. Our setting was of a new worker of an organization approaching an senior worker during a meeting, where the president was late. My role was surprisingly the senior worker, and I think I did pretty well. I didn’t notice that Elen crossing her legs after I crossed mine, was a way of copying me and putting me at ease. It felt like, if I had been in her position, if the older, more experienced worker does this, I should do this too, but not exactly.

We’ve received a extremely useful packet with many tips that I will actually study before an interview, especially before an elevator one.