Freshman Seminar Fall 17 DTB

Thursday November 2nd I attended a resume workshop, provided by STARR Career Development center. To get as much we can from this workshop they first to explain what a resume is and what it does for us. A resume helps give our potential employer an inside look of you. It gives a brief summary of skills, education and relevant experience, this summary is suppose to separate you from the rest of the pack. The instructor, Katily Riley looked like she really knew what she was talking about. She first told us that most of us are not even using the correct format when creating our resume. So she showed us the correct format we should use, and she explained the importance of using the correct format. Even if you are qualified, but uses the wrong format these big companies would not even look at you. For example using a professional font like times new roman is essential. She moved on to writing about education and experience which should be written in chronological order and be written in bullet points. This was something I was doing wrong in my resume. I knew something was wrong with my resume and going to this workshop I was able to solve (I never heard back from jobs). I feel much more confident about handing in my resume.

Good morning DTB! I know, we’re done but I wanted to pass along a survey that would be really helpful if you took it. This survey will help the school better support students. After all, if you complete it, you will get the chance to win a $20 gift card from the bookstore. The link is at the very bottom of this post.

Baruch College Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention Research Study

Baruch College is conducting a brief survey concerning student’s attitudes and knowledge about drinking and drug use, their experience with individuals who have been drinking, and their own experiences with alcohol and drugs.

If you did not previously participate via email in this survey you are invited to participate again. The survey will take about 10 to 15 minutes.  Your answers to the survey will entered on a separate and secure computer system and will be completely confidential and will not be linked to any identifying information.  Also, you may refuse to answer any questions that you find objectionable without penalty.

To show our appreciation, anyone who completes the survey will be automatically entered into a drawing to win one of several $20 gift cards in the Baruch College Bookstore.

If you are willing to help us, click the icon at the bottom of this message.  You will be directed to a secure server and you will be asked to enter your email address.  Then, you can complete the survey.  If you can’t do the survey right now, save this message and complete the survey before the end of the semester.

There are no known risks to participating in this research.  By participating, you will be providing important information that can help us to prevent serious alcohol and drug related problems on campus.  If you have questions regarding this survey, you may contact Gavin Shafron at 646-312-4570 or [email protected].

If you have questions, concerns, or complaints, or think the research has hurt you, talk to the research team at [email protected]. You may also contact the research participant advocate at 716-888-4845 or [email protected].

This research has been reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board (“IRB”). You may talk to them at (716) 888-4888 or email [email protected] if:

• You have questions about your rights as a participant in this research
• Your questions, concerns, or complaints are not being answered by the research team.
• You cannot reach the research team.
• You want to talk to someone besides the research team.
• You want to get information or provide input about this research

Survey Link: www.buffalo.edu/ria/nyssurvey

 

A little while ago I went to the Major/Minor fair to just take a look at the way it was set up and to quite frankly just make some networking connections with the leaders of each major. My class ended an hour before the fair so I ended up grabbing lunch with my friends and then heading there. They gave us a sheet to fill out and then a booklet about the different career paths that were being presented at the fair. I wanted to know a little about the economics major because it wasn’t part of zicklin and I was confused as to why. To be honest, I expected the given answer which was that the major focused mostly on consulting. This booth for economics though didn’t have that many people there. However when I went to the finance booth, I made a connection with a friendly face, his name is Kamran. We both were cryptocurrency enthusiasts and we had made a couple of joint investments together a month or two early. We had invested in something called veritaseum. So when I saw him at the fair I remembered another investment that I had coming up that I needed a little bit more money for. My partner and I had created a deal with some russian friend of ours to license us his algorithm for stock trading and we needed 25 thousand dollars for it. We had gathered 20 thousand dollars and we still need another five thousand, so I asked Kamran, and he came through with it. The bot ended up making nineteen thousand dollars in profit after three days, and all of us made 190% on our money. So if I didn’t go to the career fair I would’ve never made the investment and strengthened my relationship with Kamran in the process. Regardless of me knowing that I was going to go into the finance major, I went anyways, and it ended up being one of the greatest decisions of my financial career thus far.

Last Wednesday I decided that I would go into that scary place called the Starr Career Development Center. Turns out it’s not all that scary! On the way down the hallway  looked to my left and saw that they had a board of salaries in different fields such as the arts, sciences, and finance. Some of those salaries were very high. Who knew a theatre director made $72,000 a year. When I went in there the kind woman at the front desk asked what she could help me with and I told her that I was interested in finding about more upcoming events since I wasn’t able to attend the first career fair and I told her that I was interested in finding out more about internship opportunities. She handed me a few sheets with upcoming workshops such as Networking 101: Making Connections on November 29th. She also told me about the SCDC website and how I could edit my profile so that it would be easy to find internships. She also told me that they have free services for resume help which is great to hear because I haven’t changed my resume since high school. I’m hoping to move into a bigger role at my current job or find a better one somewhere else so that would be a great help if the SCDC could better my resume.

This semester was fairly easy for me considering I got rid of a lot of bad academic habits and replaced them with better, working habits. For example I studied a lot for my classes and did all my homework. However, there was one class I struggled with a lot regardless of it being my strong suit and that class was applied calculus. No offense but my teacher really isn’t all that great at teaching, she often skips a lot of steps in her head which is absolutely essential in math so it becomes really hard to follow especially since it’s all new material. I had felt devastated because I bombed my first test regardless of how long I studied. So i took it upon myself to take advantage of Baruch and go to SACC, the student academic consulting center. I was determined to do well on my future tests and work my way back up to an A. I made an appointment with a tutor which ended up being a group tutoring session in which there were two other students as well as the tutor. We each took turns asking the tutor questions one after another getting our thoughts more and more clear. With every question, the tutor would explain completely on a white board with an example and she made sure we understood by asking us follow up questions and asking us to repeat the steps. The tutor definitely helped me sharpen up some of my skills but since the class covers such vast topics I will for sure need to book a couple more appointments. But having access to this resource is a great advantage in doing better in school and gaining a better understanding of the things I need for class.

I went to a Study Abroad Fair, it was the best decision I have ever made. Before coming to the school, I had always wanted to study abroad or work abroad while in college. But when I arrived here, I was not sure who to go to or what exactly were the steps I had to take to study abroad. The fair was small but it had many tables, with different programs and scholarship oppurtunities so I had to walk up to every single one of them. In particular I had stopped at the JET Program USA table and there was a girl from the Japan CLub that I usually see often. Me and her talked the longest while I was at the fair, she at first told me about the Jet Program. I was disapointed to hear that I had to be Senior to participate, but it was okay because I plan on doing multiple study abroads. After speaking on the program, she gave me tips and the ins and outs of studying abroad. Such as when are the perfect times to go abroad, who to talk to in the Study Abroad Office(had no idea we even had that), and how to make sure my grades do not suffer. Although there were afew things I was not able to talk about, such as whether or not this would affect my eligiblity to get into Zicklin school in terms of prerequisite courses or if the classes I take abroad would actually transfer over to the Zicklin School properly. My last questions though, I am saving for the people at the Study abroad Office for when I finally decide to go locate it. Right now I want to study abroad this winter, if there is still an oppurtunity open for me to do so. If not I’ll just wait for the spring semester.

It was my second time going to star, and I could not remember how I was suppost to ask for help. I ended up signing up for the wrong counciling and had to wait longer.  I finally signed up for the right session so they told me to wait abit, this was around 3 p.m.. Ms. C comes to get me and brings me back to her office. The session was called career advisement, but we discussed more than just my career. This was because the major problem and reason I even came was to figure out whether I should change my entire career goals based on me cosing a different major. My intended major since I arrived to the school was acturial science and I had already taken many steps toward acheiving my goals in this field, but I had recently learned that this major was not provided at the Zicklin School. So the problem arised, should I even go into the major if I have to go to the liberal arts school Weisman, in my head I thought I would lose credibility as well as, I had already set up my next semester schedule in a way to get me towards getting into Zicklin so I did not want to turn back. Ms. C clarified for me that whether I go to Weismann or Zicklin makes no difference. For careers and future oppurtunities, its more about my experience in the fields and what internships I take. She said the instution that my major resides in should not define my decision on whether I go into it and that if becoming an acturary is what I really want to do, I should still go for it. We also talked about my interests and if acturial science is right for me, we came to the conclusion(I already knew this) that I have no real passion or interest in anything, enough to want to get paid for doing it. Basically the find your passion and let someone pay you for doing it speech did not apply to me. So I was reccomended to go out and try more things to see if I would find my calling(doubt it). This conversation we had felt like forever and it was great, but some how I was walking out the office by 3:30 so I knew we did not spend much time in there.

One fateful night at the Baruch housing, EHS 1760 residence hall. I was bored and my roommate and I were in a fight, so we were not speaking to each other. He was playing the xbox and I had nothing to do ( a lie, Im a college student there’s always something to do ) so I checked the calendar. The calendar shows events the Baruch residence advisors will be hosting and planned. I found one event hosted by Baruch, The Resume Building workshop. I had already skipped out on a job opportunity so I needed this event. I could not let another chance slip me by. So I made up my mind to go to it. However this event was at eight or nine o clock. Lucky for me there were other events hosted by EHS and their advisors. I forget now but I know one of them had pizza or some other form of snack. I left with a water gun ( which I had a plan for later that night) and some pizza ( although my roommate and I were not talking I knew he had no real food in the room just junk food so I grabbed him some. I returned to the room, dropped off the pizza in the fridge since he was sleeping, grabbed my computer and went downstairs. When I first arrived I was in a room with just one lady. I later found out she was the representative from STARR. The event was nice. We learned many insightful things. I took lots of notes and have them on my computer to this day. Unfortunately the procrastinator in me has not yet allowed me to apply them to my resume so I believe it is time to bring myself to STARR directly because it is definitely needed. That night i resolved the issue between my roommate and I, told him about my day and ended with assaulting him with the water gun from before.

For my final blog post, I attended a career fair held during club hours on Thursday. At first, I was a little skeptical about actually going because I have yet to chose my major and I felt like going to a fair that focused on all the distinctive majors Baruch had to offer was only going to overwhelm me. Mostly because I hate being asked “so what’s your major?” But It turned out to be the complete opposite, I found out a lot about majors I didn’t even know baruch had. The staff at the fair were willing to answer any question and gave descriptive details as to what the major specifically had to offer. One that really caught my attention was sociology, not as a major but as a minor. Getting to know everything about human behavior is key in any major I choose to go into. I saw it as a great skill to have no matter what I decide to do. Another major that was far more interesting than I expected was journalism, the way the man in the booth spoke about the major made me want to go home and find out more on my own. I plan on making a visit to the star center before the semester is over, I realized that I am too used to pushing everything to the side and avoiding responsibilities so I want to take advantage of this tool. I still don’t know what exactly I want to major in but now I feel like I expanded my horizons. Doing these blog posts felt like something I needed to do for just a grade, little did I know they were going to benefit me this much. Thinking about my career and my future seems a little bit clearer now. 

Throughout the semester, I was having trouble with calculus. Although I did well on my first exam, I did not end up doing so well in the second exam. It seemed like everyone in class did poorly on that test. I realize that the topics in class were only going to get harder. I was slightly discouraged but I remembered that Baruch offers tutoring services through SACC, Student Academic Consulting Center. I was determined to get some help so I made an appointment with a tutor for one hour. It was a group tutoring session, in which I was sitting with two other students and the tutor in one table. We each asked the tutor one question in a constant cycle. The tutor would handle each individual question by working it out on the whiteboard. I specifically asked questions about marginal analysis, antiderivatives, integrals, and derivatives of logarithmic functions. Most of my questions came from previous homeworks that I never really asked about in class. The tutor was able to solve all my questions and even clear up some confusion I had with some of these topics. I definitely would say it was a good experience and I will surely come back for any other questions I have, regarding future math topics. I have a clearer understanding of antiderivatives and integrals now because the tutoring session helpedme brush up on the fundamentals of these topics. The only bad part about the tutoring session was how short it felt. I do not think an hour is enough but I will be sure to schedule more sessions for future notice. Lastly, I believe that these tutoring sessions are a great resource at Baruch and there should not be any excuses for my third calculus test. I have so many tools to help me understand the actual material.