Freshman Seminar Fall 17 DTB

During club hours on Thursday September 7th, my two friends from soccer, Frank and Andy, and I decided to walk around the second floor during club hours after we finished speaking with our coach and a few other teammates. Before we even walked up the stairs, we heard Spanish music blaring from above. My friend Andy himself is Spanish and proceeded to break out singing and dancing. When we got upstairs, we saw a massive crowd of people around a DJ and a few members of the Dominican club dancing. Away from all the commotion was club called ALPFA. ALPFA is a club that works with students to prepare for interviews and to pursue potential internships. I was handed a flyer from one of the members which was for Interview Tips with JPMorgan Chase & Co. This really intrigued me because JPMorgan is a company that I dream of working for one day and this club happened to be working with them to find students for internships. It was very eye opening to see that there was a club out there that could put me in the exact place I want to be in the future. All of the students who were a part of the club were very nice and personable and answered all of my questions. Of course, it was great that they offered us a slice of pizza afterwards for signing up and speaking with a representative but that was just the cherry on top. I plan to attend their next meeting and see what I can do to help myself reach my goals. After I was done speaking with ALPFA, I walked over the Bangladeshi Newsletter table and spoke to a few members and was offered a hot cup of Bangladeshi tea which was delicious! I will definitely be back at the next club hours to see which new clubs show up.

 

On September 11, 2017 I attended the “Great Works, The Odyssey I” which Odyssey was rewritten using American and Southern Americana aspects and terminology. For example, a scene took place on a Caribbean island rather than the original location in Greece. The first Half of the entire play was shown and the producer cut out aspects of the play that he though “dragged on” in order to allow for a more flowing performance and help with the time aspect.  The event featured great actors who really embraced themselves into their characters and was written in a way where it was sophisticated, yet was much easier to understand then the original text. The actors where very diverse in age, experience, and race, an aspect I found very subtle but added greatly to the experience. The event in general opened up a whole new side to college life reviling a part of Baruch I didn’t know existed before. I remember the “I never even know we had this here” feeling when I took the elevator to the basement and saw a mini theater. It allows for a Broadway style performance to be watched and was completely free of charge. I hopefully plan to visit many more of these events that take place in “The Performing Arts Center.”  The actors took time at the end of the performance to answer any questions regarding the remix of The Odyssey and about acting in general. The whole event only took about an hour and a half, time for even the busiest students to take a brake and enjoy a classic. If you can’t find the center, you can simply as the Student Life Center on the second floor and they will promptly guide you to the location. It’s a great way to embrace your student life and take advantage of all the free things Baruch has to offer. Once you attend one of these events you have the sudden urge to attend more and expand your view of Baruch.

 

 

Unicef is a club focused on the life and prosperity of children worldwide. They have an active roll in the global community, through the use of activating and fundraising, Unicef unite those around and collect what they can to help the less forturnate.

At first, this student life meeting was not the one that I was going for, I intended to hear about She’s the first. That clearly didn’t go as planned, after searching for another club that caught my eye, Unicef had their  doors opened with welcoming arms. To my surprise, as they introduced themselves and the club intentions, I found myself wanting to know more, wanting to get deeper involved.

There’s so much more than just saying you want to help but actually stepping out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself to give back is powerful. It is easily visible that the members of Unicef love what they do. Throughout their busy Baruch college life and social life, they still manage to make room for something that does not only benefit themselves.

Clubs are not really my thing, I’m more of a come to school do my work then go home type of person. I don’t really push myself to get to know people or to be apart of a bigger community other than being a student. But now I feel driven to step out of my comfort zone and escape that mentality.

I plan on getting involved slowly, I don’t want to overwhelm myself and quickly jump into a club knowing I have so much going on. I want to attend more meetings, the first one was a brief introduction to what the club was but now I want to engage deeper. After the meeting was over they handed out a small piece of paper, basically like a check list on what to get done in order to be accepted as a future Unicef member. After getting that checklist done, ill be ready to become apart of the Unicef family.

 

On Sunday evening, I attended Daniel Colallio’s CD Release Concert @ the performing arts center. The experience was rather enchanting as he played very powerful music. He started the concert by walking on stage, walking straight to the piano, and belting out the first measures of Schubert (a composer from the early 1800s). He continued to play through his Schubert selections and on to his Scriabin pieces(composer from the late 1800s). When he finished one of the movements, he stood up, grabbed the mic, and told us a little anecdote. Four years prior to his concert last night, he got into a knife accident. It tore through his left hand and he ended up needing four stitches to repair the damage. He got very emotional as he recalled the fear of never playing again. Nevertheless, he preserved, and with hard work and practice and he gained back full control of his left hand. You can tell how thankful he was to be able to still play. Imagine, your whole career ripped away from you in the form of four stitches. You probably wouldn’t be able to handle the devastation. But alas, yesterday, he got on stage and performed a piece using entirely his left hand. It was such a strong and powerful piece as well–‘Prelude and Nocturne for the left hand alone Op. 9’ by Alexander Scriabin. I play Cello, so needless to say I enjoyed the concert very much. Although I was disheartened to see only myself and a bunch of elders attended the concert. Although to be fair I wouldn’t have known about it if it wasn’t for this assignment. Anyway, throughout the entire concert, Colalillo played entirely from memory. He didn’t have one piece of sheet music the entire time. Need I remind you it was a two hour concert. Colalillo managed to memorize two hours of repertoire and it didn’t seem like he messed up once. The talent behind those hands. And to top it all of he started playing piano when he was 15. Which is a very late age for musicians to start their training. But once again with hard work and dedication, he became the great pianist he is today. Which takes me back to the stitches. Music has to be something you absolutely adore in order to pursue a career in the classical music field. And for that to be ripped away from you so effortlessly is heartbreaking. Here’s someone who has the dedication, the passion to make a career out of music, and he almost lost all that. I’m pretty sure he steers clear of all knives or anything with a sharp edge. It was a truly inspiring anecdote, and if I learned anything it’s that if you want something bad enough, you have to put hard work and dedication into it. The end result will always be worth it. Huh, I guess this wasn’t totally useless after all.

So, I saw that one of the options in the booklet was to go to a museum. I am a fan of the Met and decided to go and take some pictures and look around. I found some high quality art in my adventure. The first thing that I stumbled upon was a particular statue in the Roman section. I thought it looked like Voldemort so I had to snag a pic with him.

I continued to wander around and went into the African section.While there I was greeted by a large dancing ore and thought that I had to swipe a pic with it. I traveled to the medieval section afterwords and found a statue of the first Pope, Peter. With divine inspiration I was blessed with a pic. I found it fun to wander around and look for interesting things to take pictures of. While there I also found a baby with a sickle. I joked to my friend that it was soviet propaganda and took a picture with it. Lastly we went to my favorite section, the arms and armor.

 

There I found the armor of King Henry the 8th which I thought was pretty cool. If you haven’t been to the Met, I would highly recommend going but even if you have you should go again. It is a great collection of art from different cultures and categories much like people in Baruch. There is something for everybody.

 

 

 

 

It’s a pretty generic way to start off my blog entry, but in the beginning, I went to the Beta Alpha Psi general interest meeting in order to fulfill my blog post requirement. However during the process I was able to learn many things, and not just for the sake of writing things down on this post. At first I wanted to visit a more entertaining club such as the e-sports club that fits more into my interests, but since I was to write about this event, I chose to go to a more formal looking meeting to attend. And I’d have to say, that I chose just the right one. In the BAP meeting I was able to learn about things that I’ve been looking for ever since I entered Baruch. Up until now I wasn’t really able to get a gist of what the future would be like. Baruch thus far had been pretty lax, and nothing really different from high school. But after the meeting I was able to get a better feeling of my future career and how Baruch college would help me navigate towards that goal. During the meeting I was able to obtain information regarding SACC and how BAP would be able to help me plan my career. I heard from the meeting that they offer things like mock interviews, which would help me greatly because I suffer from severe nervousness. Although these things were probably taught to me before, I hadn’t really paid attention to them, so they weren’t really drilled in me. Going to an honors society meeting I was able to see a lot of people who were very much ready for their future, and the things that they said they’ve done really helped me envision my future better. As people who’ve already been through what I am about to, even small advice that they gave, like how I would have to spend more time at campus than at home if I wanted to pursue a better career, was something I could take a lot from.