Evan Nikolic

On Tuesday the twenty fourth, I attended a women’s swim meet at William Paterson University. At 3:00 pm we all piled into vans and started our trip to Wayne, New Jersey.  This was a duel meet for both the men’s and women’s team so I would be spending half the meet as a spectator and the other half competing. The women would be swimming first and the first event was the medley relay. This is when four swimmers each swim two laps each being different disciplines. The girls took first place and finished with a time of 2:06.14. After a few more individual events, the two hundred free style and the two hundred individual medley, the one meter diving started.  This was a men and women event with four rounds in total. The dives were preformed very well with one diver receiving an 8 across the board.

After the diving finished, the officials cleared the pool and allowed the swimmers to warm up. After a few more events the score was very close. The last event was the two hundred free relay. They got off to a slow start and couldn’t recover. The Women would go on to lose by 10 points. The men’s meet went even worse. We won the first relay and took third place with our second relay. After that we took a few more first places and watched the three meter diving event. The meet ended at 9 pm and we arrived back at the school at 11. It was a great experience hanging out and watching people accomplish the things they train every day for, despite not winning.

I was able to learn a lot from attending the Dining Etiquette Workshop. It is very useful to know the proper etiquette that should be used at a dinner, whether you are going to a family friend’s house for dinner or a when attending a job interview. I learned a lot of things that I would not have learned otherwise. If you are attending a buffet, do not fuss over what food you want. If you can not decide whether you want fruit salad or not, do not waste time and wait by the buffet. Take it and if you decide not to eat it it’s not a big deal. Be sure to grab a napkin also so you can keep your mouth and hands clean. When putting food for yourself, be sure that you do not put a mountain of food in your plate because it will look ridiculous. If you are eating soup as an appetizer, do not scoop the soup towards you, but rather away. It is more proper and avoids soup splashing onto you. If you are sitting with 8 or less people you should wait until everybody has their food before beginning to eat otherwise it may be considered rude. Before sitting down to eat if you are wearing a jacket decide whether or not you would like to wear your jacket throughout the meal. If you decide to leave your jacket on do not take it off in the middle of the meal. When sitting down place your napkin on your lap and be sure to use it occasionally to keep yourself clean. If you are having an interview with your potential boss and the waiter or waitress asks if you would like a cocktail or wine to drink, refuse. Even if your boss insists that you get wine or share a wine with him refuse.

Since school started, I was looking forward to joining a club. I have been increasingly interested in black culture and history being that it directly effects me. So, I thought Black Student Union would be a supportive group of people to be around during my college career. They emailed saying they were have a “fresh meet” where old and/or new club members could meet and refresh.  

I walked into the lecture hall followed by a swarm of boys who all went to sit in the same section. I was by myself, so I made myself comfortable in the back. I was nice seeing a room full of minorities that were all pursuing their education. this gave a a sense of hope for myself in a stressful, and competitive environment like Baruch. All of the club members were very enthusiastic about their culture, you could tell that they’ve build a strong bond and legacy at school. The school spirit really showed.

I watched a bunch of presentations and slideshows for other cultural groups that were interesting but I was really just waiting for BSU. One of the members of the Latino Student Union actually came and introduced himself to me. He probably thought I was spanish like most people do, but it made me feel welcome even though it wasn’t his club I wanted to join. I liked how all of the smaller club create a bigger community on campus that you can tell, even in just one meeting, is full of passion and encouragement.

When BSU made their presentation, I learned a lot about clubs and how they work. It really isn’t just a group of people that hang out together. there are certain roles and certain responsibilities that you have to dedicate yourself to. It was a bit daunting to me. I wanted to be involved, but on top of school work and a new learning environment, I knew I was not ready for that kind of commitment right now. However, I talked with a couple club members afterward and they told me about events that I could attend, introduced me to people I could talk to, and told me about places I could hang out if I wanted or needed to. They were all extremely friendly and very helpful, I really enjoyed myself.

I followed the BSU Instagram page to keep up with current events and history inside of school and out. I intend to join the club at some point in the near future, when I feel more grounded on campus.

Wassup everybody!

I decided to hop on over to the Museum of Natural History. Always loved dinosaurs so why not? I’ve visited the museum before but that was about 5 years ago, so seeing it again after such a long time felt amazing. Of course upon entering you see the huge ticeratops and barosaurus skeletons. All along the walls of the museum you can see quotes from Presidents and from the U.S. constitutions. It was odd not seeing the museum packed… rarely ever happens. I immediately fast walked to the second floor where the dinosaur exhibit was. And there I was just surrounded by a bunch of dinosaurs. The inner kid in me was shaking with excitement. I walked around and went to each bone set and read the descriptions, trying to absorb as much information as I could. Seeing the T-Rex in its entirety was jaw dropping. And then I made my way to the famous inner hall which contained the massive brachiosaurus skeleton, spanning across the entire hall! Unfortunately I was a little stressed on time so I couldn’t take myself through the entire Dino Tour. Will definitely visit again, hopefully soon!

For my club visit, I decided not to join any clubs because there was nothing for me since my main interest is fashion and all the clubs for fashion don’t exist anymore. However I went to the radio room because I love music as well and my friend Max was applying to it so I went with him to check out what Baruch and WBNB have in store. I won’t lie I was thoroughly impressed with the radio room and the professional studio atmosphere it gave off. I loved the Vinyl collection they had in one of the rooms, with it being topped off with the Chiddy Bang Cereal and other rarities. We also went into the radio room itself where my friend filled out his application while I was just checking out the amazing radio set up they had and I saw that the DJ was really flowing with the music, it felt like I was at 97.1 in the morning. The studio room was small but it had really cool lighting and reminded me of my friends studio room out in Brooklyn. Overall the experience was great and I go back there pretty often now just because it’s a lot of fun and everyone in there is really chilled out and always down to help with whatever problems you have which is great for me since I am a freshmen and I do have a ton of problems that they themselves have went through so it gives me a lot of insight.

Hey guys!

In this blog I’m going to talk about this week’s “Kesher” meeting in Baruch College. Kesher is a club where 40 jewish boys meet once or twice a week depending on availability. Every week A rabbi comes and lectures us on a range of different topics, this week’s lecture being on the holidays coming up. The first of the holidays is called “Rosh Hashana.” Rosh Hashana translates to new year. This year Rosh Hashana starts on Wednesday night and ending Friday night going straight into Shabbos essentially making it a 3-day holiday. This holiday lasts for two days and the basic idea of the holiday is to start a fresh year and ask god for forgiveness of all the sins you have made in the past year. There is ten days in between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and these ten days are vital in the forgiveness process. In these ten days there are many prayers added to the daily prayers where we admit to our sins and promise god to be better in the upcoming year. The next holiday is Yom Kippur and this is the most important day on the Jewish calendar. Yom Kippur is a fast day where you can’t eat, shower, put perfume or wear leather for 25 hours. The rabbi told us that it is said that forgiveness is right in front of us and it in upon every single Jew to ask for forgiveness on this day because this is the day where god is the most forgiving. The Kesher program happens in a range of different colleges where a different rabbi comes to every college and lectures the community members in that school. Kesher is a great place to catch up with my friends from high school that are also in Baruch.

 

Henry Barnathan

In the past week, I’ve attended many general interest club meetings, including Lexicon’s. Lexicon is the school’s yearbook committee. It’s the only student run organization that makes and sells its own product: the yearbook. Lexicon, within itself, has many committees. These committees include: photography, graphic design, finance, management, and marketing. Meeting the heads of the team made me think that it was indeed something that I would like to be a part of. They were very welcoming and seemed genuinely excited about the work that they do.

At the meeting, they did a run over of each committee, explaining the responsibilities and targets. I was most intrigued by what the graphics and photography department had to say. The photography department is responsible for any pictures that would go in the yearbook while the graphics department makes the physical yearbook.

I also had the opportunity to meet with each of the e board members along with some of their senior members. Attached is a photo of me with sadia, who was last year’s chair of Graphics for the yearbook. After engaging in conversation with her, she told me that being in the graphics committee doesn’t require you to have any skills beforehand but rather the heads of the department teaches you any and all the skills necessary. This was great to hear as I am actually super interested in learning graphics but I just didn’t know where to start from. The current head of department, nudrat, also said that they will be hosting a few “graphics 101” sessions, which I’m really looking forward to. This club allows me to grow so much in areas that I am interested in and that can help me in my future. I’m currently undecided in my major but having graphics skills and marketing skills will never hurt me.

Also apparently one benefit of joining Lexicon, is being able to attend almost all the big events and getting to know the general baruch population. This is so exciting, as a freshman, this will allow me to expand my horizons and get to know more people and to see if I’m Interested in other events.

Lexicon’s first cosponsored event is this week on Tuesday. The event is going to be hosted by the Muslim Student Association. Sadia is also co president of the club so she was able to give me the inside scoop and invite me. This school year is starting off great! Can’t wait to go to all the events the clubs can offer me. #freefood!