Freshman Seminar Fall 17 DMC

Baruch Accounting Society

On Thursday, Sep 7th, I decided to go check out the accounting club because I didn’t have any class around 12 p.m on that day. While I was waiting outside the meeting room, A dude came up and started talking to me, we started to introduce ourselves to each other, I learned that he’s name is Bhavik, and he was there to check out the club too. We briefly talked about major and reasons why we came to this meeting. At first I wasn’t sure how to explain it because I was not that passionate about joining the accounting club, but one thing he said was inspiring, “Well, at least we have some interest in this accounting club or else we wouldn’t be here.” I realized that it’s not about which club to join but try whatever you are interested in. Minutes after we got inside the room, Bhavik introduced me to another dude he knew that was also at that general interest meeting, Sam, it was surprising to me that neither of them is freshmen. After everybody settled down, the club members started to introduce themselves to us, and since it was the first general interest meeting, we started off with an ice breaker where we had to look at a zoomed in picture and guess what it is. I grouped up with Sam and Bee, a nickname I call him and formed a team of 4 and we each give our own opinion, but since it was just a game, we started joking around and guessing silly things. Total of 18 pictures were shown, and the club president announced that there were 2 winning teams, and ironically we are one of them, we gladly accepted the price of 2 pens and a bag of chocolates, and the meeting went on. The members started explaining different fields and areas that the club is involved in, and we can pick one we are interested in to join. Bee, Sam and me all decided to join the planning committee, and that was about it, met two cool guys and had a lot of fun on the first general interest meeting of the Baruch Accounting Society. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention, their food/pizzas and cookies were more than enough for everybody compare to the few clubs I went before, but I wasn’t hungry at that time tho :P.

United Chinese Language Association

I attended UCLA on August 31 with my two high school buddies on the right. I didn’t hear about UCLA until they told me about it. They heard about it during Convocation Day, but I must have missed their table. I didn’t really know anything about UCLA other than the fact it’s about Chinese culture. The moment we stepped into the 10th floor, it was packed! There were so many people waiting for their door to open. My friends and I were completely baffled by the amount of people attending to the first general meeting. It proved to me that this club must be really interesting and fun. I mean my friends and I couldn’t even get in the hallway to the door so we were standing near the vending machines. The wait wasn’t that long and the president, himself made his way to greet everyone. We had a small talk together and it was cool to see him so energetic and calm despite the crowded hallway. At that point, I was slowly getting interested in the club since there were so many people here for the club. After 10 minutes, we finally got inside a classroom and it did not fit everyone. There were still people in the hallway trying to listen to the president and past members present on the powerpoint. The powerpoint was short, filled with images of their past events. There was one event that looked really interesting which was their Chinese Lunar event which I hope to participate. After their presentation, they introduced three fun games which included pictionary where we were split into two teams. The energy there was phenomenal and everyone was competitive and wanted to win. The pictures were really funny and my friends and I had a lot of fun screaming the names of the weird drawings. Lastly, they ended with four trays of food and it smelled wonderful. We tried to line up but there were just far too many people in a small room so we left. In the end, I really enjoy their mission and vibe and think I can defiantly attend and participate in their club. I’m looking forward to it!!

Finance & Economics Society （FES)

On Thursday during club hours, I attended the Finance and Economics Society (FES) club meeting where some of the current members of the club, mainly juniors and seniors, shared their experiences interning for companies in different business fields. A panel of six members shared their tips and advice for finding internships and where resources can be found. Resources such as the Starr Development Center is a great program to connect students seeking internships to employers. At the same time, programs such as leadership and mentoring programs offered by clubs and the school are also great opportunities to take advantage in where students have mentors and peers that offer their professional advice. From these programs, students go through training and learn skills required to work in a professional field. The club members suggest that students interested in the business field should start early with finding mentors and networking and building up a resume. To be prepared for interviews, club members advise students to do some research about the job that students are applying to such as watching videos and articles to show interviewers that they at least know the basics. At the same time, club members also suggest that when students become interns, it is important to be aware of their actions and be a like-able team member. Usually since interns will be assigned to a team of professionals and will be working long hours with them, it is important for future interns to collaborate with team members efficiently and build good relationships and bonds. It is important that students have good time management to work on assigned projects and coming to work on time. Similarly, club members remind students to be ready for negative feedback and expect for unexpected and challenging assignments. At the end of the interview, based on their experiences, the club members all agreed that it is important to “work smarter, not harder.”

CPP orientation on Sep,14

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.

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.This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative.

workshop response

This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative.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!