For my academic blog post, I went to the Baruch Study Abroad Fair to learn about how to study abroad at Baruch. Before I entered college, I dreamed about study abroad in European countries, such as the United Kingdom, and Asian countries, such as South Korea. I would like to put myself in a different environment for five months and learn something new about a country and discover my new potentials. Plus, I didn’t study in the United States for all my life, I have study experience in another country as well. To me, study in the U.S. was like “study abroad” to me when I first arrived in the U.S. When I entered the gym where Baruch hosted the event, I saw schools from all around the world, and of course, I went to the desks of countries I’m familiar with. I had the most interest in study abroad in South Korea since I’m a huge lover of Korean pop music. The school that partners with Baruch College for study abroad is Yonsei University. Yonsei University itself is a very highly-ranked school in South Korea. I learned from the staff that if I go there, I will be enrolled by a program called Yonsei University Program for Foreigners, where international undergraduate students are provided with the opportunity to learn Korean language and experience Korean culture. I wouldn’t need to be afraid of not being proficient in Korean since courses there are taught in English. Baruch’s GPA requirement for study abroad is 2.75. Sometimes one receives credits from Baruch for the courses taken while study abroad, sometimes not, depending on the contents of the courses. Financial aids can be applied to study abroad classes. There are also various scholarship programs that can help students finance their study abroad trips. From this event, I have learned a lot about study abroad and I will keep considering study abroad as an option for me by the time I reach junior or senior year.

In the second week of school, I went to the first general interest meeting of Women In Business for my freshmen blog. I chose to attend the meeting held by this club because just as its name suggests, it’s for female students that have the interest to pursue careers in the field of business. My intended major is accounting, therefore, I would like to join some clubs that are relevant to business and gain experience starting from the first year of college. I went with a friend who also wanted to major in business.  When we entered the room, there were already a lot of people that were the old members of the organization sitting or standing there and socializing with each other. It was a bit awkward for us because since we were new to the school and the clubs in the school, we didn’t really know how to participate in a general interest meeting comfortably like others. Many of the people attended were dressed professionally, which made the atmosphere totally different from what I was used to in high school club meetings. The goal of the club is to help women to be ready to work in the business world by offering mentorship programs and hosting events that can connect them to the professionals. During the meeting, we were introduced to different committees of the club, such as Pearls of Wisdom, Style Your Success, marketing, graphics, mentorship, and corporate relations. To become a member, one can either join a committee or become an inductee. The three key values of this organization are mentorship, which refers to their mentorship program, Athena, mobility, which is the opportunity that they provide to members to climb up the ladder of this organization and become board members, and meritocracy, which is the availability of opportunities to let the members develop leadership skills. I have learned a lot about the club’s structure and purpose after this meeting.