Month: September 2017

Am I doing this right? Bach when I first came to Baruch for orientation, my orientation leader led us through the club section of the Vertical campus. While nothing really piqued my interest, most clubs seemed to be incredibly professional frats, and groups that appealed to a certain racial or social group. Finally something caught my eye and made my heart palpitate, what I was looking for. Mock trial. Yes, I know seems its weird that I just thrashed Baruch’s clubs for being incredibly professional but law feels like my calling. So flash forward to last Thursday when I went back to the club section to checkout Mock trial, to no avail. None of these doors had Mock trial printed on their little yellow papers designating the club suites. I must’ve circled the hallways for twenty minutes refusing to believe that my eyes were playing tricks on me at orientation. So I go down to student life to locate the club, again, to no avail. Giving up I go to the FUSION club as I had a friend there. Now I know its weird I spent the bulk of this post focusing on something thats not even the assignment, but bear with me. FUSION proved to be a lot of fun despite the fact that I was the only white kid there. Everyone was quite friendly, and it came off as genuine, that they wanted me to be there. So I was ready for FUSION to be my club for this semester and my gateway to Baruch’s parties. Shifting the setting to today, Nudrat, mentioned that finding all of Baruch’s club was merely a google search away. Doing this I found where Mock trial meets and will be attending this Thursday! While FUSION seemed to be what I wanted, I couldn’t help but join Mock trial instead. But heres a selfie lol.

For my first blog, I attended the first GIM of FUSION. I heard about FUSION  during convocation day. FUSION stands for Filipinos Uniting Students In Other Nations. Having “filipino” in it’s name, I was bound to join sooner or later. The meeting was not bad. The E-board introduced themselves and was the club was about. They listed all the events and things that they do throughout the year, and honestly, it gave me hope that I would have somewhat a good time during my stay at Baruch. They have events such as carnivals, parties, athletic events, and many more. During the GIM, they also had a variety of filipino food, which made me even more interested. I look forward to the next GIM, and I encourage my fellow classmates to give it a look.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure to go to the National Museum of Mathematics or MoMath. To be honest, I chose to go here because it was the closest museum to Baruch but I unexpectedly had a good time. I went in with the intent to complete this assignment but I actually prolonged my stay after seeing what it had to offer. They had an exhibit called Hoop Curves which was technology that I never seen before. It is an exhibit where you take a regulation free throw as you would in basketball. It uses cameras and light sensors to measure the height, angle, and velocity of your shot and gives feedback on how you can improve through statistics and data visualizations. I never expected to have such a good time at a museum based around mathematics but I guess anything really is possible. I recommend going here after school or during a break. It is literally a five minute walk from the school and is a worthwhile experience.

3:15pm, Tuesday afternoon. It was 75 degrees and cloudy. I walked into the museum, which would later prove to be everything that I thought it was gonna be. I went to the cashier to get my ticket (free with Baruch ID), and proceeded to hand over my bookbag as I entered the exhibition. The MoMA is a marvelous facility. There was plenty of room to walk around, and the air conditioning was borderline perfection. It also smelled amazing inside the museum. The atmosphere is what had the biggest impact on my experience. It was truly incredible. The art work, the sculptures, and the views of the city from the windows is what completed the entire adventure. My favorite exhibitions in the museum were “The People’s Studio” where you could design 3D art, gardens and other sculptures, as well as the “melting fan” on the 4th floor. It was an amazing experience, and I hope that I can go again someday.

The Whitney Museum of American arts always has something unique to display. The last time I visited, they had paintings from the 1980s. This time, they displayed works of art created by a man named Helios Oiticica, an innovative 20th century artist. His unique art style composed mainly of geometric shapes. His simple use of shapes and colors makes his artworks standout. The Whitney not only display some of his 2d masterpieces, but they also had sections dedicated to some of his 3D works. There were geometric shapes hanging from the ceiling and also an area with boxes where you can walk into. The other exhibit on display was called An Incomplete History of Protest. The exhibit showcased a wide selection of propaganda from wars, protest against racism, and art pieces against AIDS. One of my most memorable part of the exhibit was a section where they placed military outfits filled with sand on the floor to showcase how dead bodies look stacked up in the battlefield. 

So I checked out the G.I.M for the E-Sports club last Thursday. From what I saw, it seemed pretty entertaining. They had a large number of games for all the kids to play and from the amount of hands that went up in the room, it seems like a lot of the kids would enjoy themselves in the club. They seemed like they were still figuring things out, but that makes sense because it is their first meeting after all. I didn’t really expect anything too crazy for the first meeting. They brought up that they had two sides mainly, one for casual gaming and one for competitive gaming. I thought that was pretty nice because it’s able to separate those who really want that intense competitive feeling and those who are just there to chill. The staff of the club also seemed really cool. In fact, one of its members won a championship and got 10,000 from it! I think that highlights how far you can really go with the E-Sports club. They all seemed like cool people. The best part of it though was definitely when they brought in the pizza. It seemed like everybody was pretty hype about the pizza so I guess that makes sense. Some of those kids were low-key starving. They brought in 4 boxes too! They really weren’t playing around with food, that’s for sure. Overall, it seemed pretty nice and the people definitely seemed really chill.

On Tuesday I decided to visit the National Museum of Mathematics. I’m not a fan of math, but the museum is a five minute walk from Baruch so I figured I would give it a chance. When I arrived I was ready to see some boring math problems and a couple of games for younger kids. As I began looking around I noticed that it was the total opposite of what I had imagined. The museum had a lot of cool interactive exhibits like a chair that spins you around really fast. I noticed that the ages of the people ranged from young to old, and they all seemed to be having a good time. I would recommend  going to this museum with a group of friends because it is close by and a lot of fun.