It was excited to meet my secret native speaker partner in the conversation partner program orientation. We’ve been chats on the phone for few times when we finally have each other ’s contact information. During the conversation, I found out my partner is also a freshman. In order to “break the ice” among us, we plan to meet each other before the orientation time started. I was nervous at the first place to meeting my partner, of not knowing the gender and imitate the awkward situation I might face. When I finally saw her, Aja, my partner, who was a talkative girl and has a completely different cultural background with me. But we have a nice 20 minutes conversation of knowing each other ’s interest and cultural events. We hurry ourselves to the room when the orientation time was almost close.
When I step into the CPP ’s orientation class, I didn’t find lots of people in there, which makes me a little surprise of the numbers of the participates. As I sat down with Aja at the corner of the front row, I start to looking around for the food station, because my stomach was so hungry as if I could eat 10 hamburgers at this moment. But to show my respect and behaved attitude, I keep my mind concentrate on Aja and start the discussion about small things like the last events of the orientation day she had to attend and her future plan of other clubs.
After about 10 more minutes pass, the numbers of participates in this class start to increase, from about 14 t0 50 above. At around 1’o clock, the president of the CPP starts with her introduction of the presentation. Each of the member staff of CPP introduces their name and position before the presentation begin. Then the founder of the CPP, who is a retired professor, introduced himself and the purpose of setting up this club. Though-out his discussion, I gain more background information of CPP and more interest in this club, not only CPP set up benefits for both native and non-native speakers, but also the cultural events they provided grab my attention, including “Professional Workshop”, “Game Night” and etc.
I like how the president says “You don’t have to “married” with CPP, you could freely join other club and attend another event, as long as you have weekly conversational with your partner is enough, our main purpose is for you to find common interests friends.” Therefore at that moment, I stick with my mind of joining this club.
Month: September 2017
Workshop Thoughts- (club-Ascend)
Last Thursday, I went to the Ascend club’s meeting at 12:00 pm with couple of my friends. Back to the convocation day, a leader in that club already introduce their club to me. This club is about Finance and Accounting and i was unsure about my major so i just have a little bit interesting of this club. We went to a small room and it contained about 30 people. Before we started the meeting, there were many foods we could get such as noodles, rice and many different kind of drinks. The staff was friendly and asked us to take foods. After we got food and signed up, the president started to present. He talked about how the Ascend work and there are 4 committee in the club. This club contain the professional development committee, marketing committee, technology committee and fundraising committee. Each of the leader of the committee introduce themselves and explain what are their jobs in this club. The professional development committee is give members the opportunities to network with recruiters, alumni, and professionals. The marketing committee is promote Ascend’s mission and events though different platforms. The technology committee, which is the most interesting one i think, in this committee you can learn to use PS, JAVA, C++…and put posts of events to the club’s website or Facebook. The Fundraising committee’s jobs are bridge to corporations, industry and professional development. They showed the video about how people like these committee and how they think it will be helpful when they join this club. In addition, this club showed a calendar of events they will have for this year, at the end of meeting. After the meeting, i was think about the major i might take but i’m really could not decide now so l may not join this club now,and may be join it later. However, the meeting was good and really could know somethings.
Alpha Phi Omega GIM
I attended first GIM of Alpha Phi Omega on September 5. I heard about this club on convocation day. It’s a community service fraternity. Since I enjoy doing community services so much at high school, I might as well continue doing it at college. So I decided to go take a look with my friend and see how it work. First of all, they introduce what’s the club is about. Three pillars of the club are Friendship, Leadership, and Service. In the powerpoint, they showed us a lot of activities they have been doing. The most exciting activity that I’m most interested in is the Halloween activity. They dress up and give out candies to children. After that, we played ice breaking. It was kind of a kiosk because there are a lot of people and desk, there wasn’t enough room for games. However, we played “move your butt” game, people are running around and try not to get left out in the circle. We have a lot of fun and able to know a lot of new people by playing games. Of course, they bought popeyes for us as a treat. We sat down, eat and talk. Brothers are so enthusiastic and they keep introducing Baruch to us. I’ve also asked a lot of questions about accounting major, what path should I take or what’re their thoughts about this major. They are more than willing to help and answer the questions. It is a very nice experience and opportunity to get know more people and make a connection. After attending this event, I felt one step closer to my short-term goal– which is able to engage in the school. After all, college is not that bad as I think, people are nice and passion. I’m looking forward to more activities that can broaden my knowledge.
First GIM experience
Hey, am Payal an international student from India. I attended International student organisation’s first general interest meeting on September 12, 2017.
Being an international student I was looking up to this club since orientation where I heard about them, what they are, what they do etc. This was the first club I interacted with during my orientation so I was keen to attend their meeting. It was interesting as well as informative. I met and had conversations with the President, secretary, and other various members of the club too that day.
It began with introduction of the club members then all other students who were there to attend the meeting introduced themselves.There were icebreakers. It was a great opportunity to get to know people from different parts of the world and getting to know their culture. Also this club is not just restricted to international students but it also welcomes the native students. So international students like me get a chance to know more about the city by interacting with them. The events conducted by the club in the past seemed really very interesting and enjoyable and hopefully events like that will be organized in future too so that we can attend it.
Mainly this meeting helped me know the procedures for an international student which they should ensure they are following and also other information about internships for International students which is definitely going to help in coming time. This was overall an enriching experience that what is a general interest meeting, how clubs work, why we need to join club, how clubs help you develop your personality and so on.
Baruch is so diverse and International Student Organization is one of the examples that reflects the diversity of our college. My first experience of attending a club meeting was great and am looking forward to attend more.
workshop response
On September 12th,2017, today, I went to Accounting Society’s interview workshop. It’s my first time to attend such awesome form of workshop. At the beginning, the leader did the presentation about the process of interview, pre-interview tips, and what should we do during and after the interview. Initially, the leader introduced to us about the organization of OCR (On Campus Recruiting) and STARR, and the essential for me to know is that if I want to apply for certain positions with firms, I must be OCR certified. After that I can apply to internships and full-time positions. The second thing is to practice interview because practice makes perfect, and it will help me become easier with time. And before the interview, I need to google the firm first, and thorough in my research but do not memorize everything. If I know who will be interviewing me, look them up on Linkedln. The notable point is that “you never know who is watching you and taking notes!”, so being kind to everyone who you meet. What’s more,for the common interview questions “tell me about yourself?” The tactic is to reiterate your major and year in school, why you are interested in this position, what skills you possess that make you qualified, and how you can benefit the firm; education, work/volunteer experience, social activities etc. In addition, after the interview, make sure to thank the interview as well as those who may have greeted me while I am exiting the office, using email or thank you card.
Last but not least, during the workshop, the leader was allocated to each group, and in each group, they simulated a interview. Through participating in the mock interview, I had a precious experience in interview question and pattern which inspired me a lot to do lots of work to practice and in the future, maybe next year or in my junior year, I will attend to OCR to get certified!
