Author: Tomasz Horczak

Baruch Voices is an event in which the most voted for freshman from each FRO class get a chance to present their monologues in front of the school. Watching their performances you can see all the different types of ways people express themselves when given an open opportunity. Some of the monologues were very serious while others were comedic. It was interesting to see how different students decided to go about the open ended task of writing a monologue about anything. Two of my favorite monologues included one in which a student made a rap about his pro-life stance on abortion. I have never seen a serious political argument made in that way, and it was very well done and entertaining. The second monologue that I really enjoyed was the monologue about Squidward going to the bubble bowl. He presented it in a way that made people think this is something that he has actually done when in reality he was just descibing what Squidward felt during the bubble bowl episode of Spongebob. It was surprising, and well executed. I am glad that I went to Baruch voices, and plan on going next year.

*Beep *Beep

My alarm wakes me up at 7:00am. Why did I set my alarm for 7 in the morning if my first class isn’t until 10:45? Oh yeah I still have to write a monologue for first year seminar, and finish studying for that Sociology midterm. I really shouldn’t have wasted my time last night binge watching old Louis C.K stand up routines on youtube. I swear that I remember telling myself back in highschool that in college I’ll start taking my academics seriously. Well I’m halfway through my first semester in college, and nothing has changed. I still wait till the last minute to do assignments, and don’t put the effort into studying for exams. I keep telling myself that I’ll do my homework early, and actually study for exams, hopefully one day I actually will listen to myself. They weren’t joking when they said college will be a lot tougher than high school. It feels like I just graduated last week. I really miss being able to pass all my classes, and still have time to play a sport, but that time is sadly over. I’m not going to beat myself up over my performance this semester, because this is just the beginning, and there’s always next semester.

Although most museums don’t seem that interesting the Met has a lot of different exhibits to offer, it is sure to have an exhibit for everybody’s interests. The Met has art pieces from many different time periods and eras. You can see contemporary art, or ancient statues of former rulers of ancient civilizations. When walking through the different exhibits you are able to see different cultures expressed their beliefs through art, and how a cultures art changed over time. The exhibit that I explored was Cristobal De Villalpando Mexican painter of Baroque. Most of Cristobal’s art focused around Christian bible stories, and how he interpreted them through art. One of the most interesting pieces in the exhibit was a huge painting showing Moses and the brazen serpent, and the Transfiguration of Jesus. These two images showed a juxtaposition of the Old and New Testament. The exhibit on a whole allowed me to see how a artist interpreted the bible hundreds of years ago. Exploring this exhibition allowed me to see the paintings of one of Mexico’s most accomplished artists, and to explore Mexican culture which I have little experience with. I’m glad one of our options for our blog post was to go to a museum, because it forced me to explore something that I didn’t have much interest in but ended up learning a lot about cultures unfamiliar to me through art.

Choosing what club meeting I wanted to go to was a awfully big conumdrum that I had. After much thought I decided to go to the Baruch Traders general interest meeting. I decided to go to this club meeting because I have been interested in learning about trading stocks so this club seemed to be the exact thing that I was looking for. Although I thought that their would be only a couple of people at this meeting, the Wasserman Trading Floor was packed with people interested in what this club had to offer. The meeting consisted of current members explaining the premise of the club and the basics of how stock trading works. The Baruch Traders club runs a simulated stock market, and together they think of strategies to best make a profit in the simulated stock market. The club then goes to various competitions across the country to compete with other schools to see who has the best strategies to profit from the stock market. Although they only scratched the surface of the complexities of the stock market at their general interest meeting it was enough that now I want to take the time learn more about stock trading on my own. This first club meeting was a lot more different than the clubs that I had been to in high school. While in high school most clubs are only for fun, here at Baruch I noticed that many of the clubs offered not only let you meet new people, but they also teach you skills that can be very useful in your career in the future. I am very excited to continue trying more clubs here at Baruch.