Freshman Seminar Fall 17 DWA

Student Life

Yesterday I went to the ARC with my friend Glen. During club hours the ARC allows people to participate in athletic activities such as basketball, handball, and swimming.

Me, Glen, and Nick went to play basketball in the school’s gym. We started off having to wait for a little while to play, as there were a good amount of people already waiting to play in the 4 on 4 game, along with the few hoops to the side that some people were shooting around at. While Glen went over and played in the four on four game, me and Nick went over to shoot around at one of the side hoops. I’m not too confident in my ability to play in a game (in other words I suck at basketball), so simply shooting around a hoop was something more my pace. However, even though I’m not that good of a basketball player whatsoever, I still enjoyed the environment of playing with a bunch of other Baruch students of all grades, and it is something I absolutely intend to do in the future.

 

Student Life: APO Meeting

On Tuesday, September 12th, Raquel and I went to the General Interest Meeting (GMI) for Alpha Phi Omega. I didn’t really know a lot about APO going into the meeting but definitely left with a real interest in the organization.

The meeting started a little late, but the recruitment chairmen Amy Chen and Kifayat Huda made up for it. They both lead a seamless powerpoint that really spoke wonders to the co-ed fraternity, whose motto I learned is “be a leader, be a friend, be of service”. Amy could attest that APO taught her and Kifayat how to speak in public, and helped them not only develop their leadership skills but other soft skills. This had me hooked, leadership qualities can always be improved as well as our soft skills.

Then they began to speak to the service pillar, the most important one. They do everything from the AIDS walk to working at food pantries, which is both a humbling and motivating experiences. Having done volunteer work for St. Jude’s for many years, I knew that this is something that I not only wanted to do, but would enjoy doing. At the end, I knew that I could seriously consider seeing myself ‘rushing’ for APO!

Student Life

Today I went to a GIM for Alpha Phi Omega. When they first approached me at Convocation day, I will admit I wasn’t that interested in joining. However, as I was looking into the club, I realized that I might actually like it.

Although they started the meeting late, I was quite impressed at what they had to offer. APO recruitment chairmen Amy Chen and Kifayat Huda talked about how APO is a co-ed fraternity that is mostly revolving around volunteer work. Their motto is “be a leader, be a friend, be of service.” In other words, APO provides members leadership, friendship, and service.
To start, Kifayat explained how she struggled with talking to large audiences and how she’s a shy person. Becoming a brother of Alpha Phi Omega allowed her to work on her public speaking skills and socialization. I too struggle with this, thus I was becoming more and more intrigued.
Amy talked about how she’s always wanted to do volunteer work and APO gave her the opportunity to do so. She ended up volunteering over 30 hours this past year and even wanted to do more! I’ve done volunteer services while I was in High School for clubs, but not to a deep extent. I think it would be nice to give back to communities in NYC that already do so much. In addition, I feel volunteering will make me feel grateful for what I have and not complain so much on the things I don’t have.
Furthermore, Amy expressed how she basically made a new family through Alpha Phi Omega and has a whole new group of friends. I’m
always open to meeting new people
and making more friends is always a plus. Especially if they’re going to be close ones! Who doesn’t want more friends?
Overall, I enjoyed my experience at the APO GIM. I think I’m going to continue going through the recruitment process and see what happens!

Latinx Heritage Month Mocktails and Paint

Today during my lunch break, I had a chance to attend this Latinx Heritage Month event with one of my friends, Mayer, here at Baruch College. This event was quite interesting for the both of us since we made new friends and learned fascinating things. We were greeted by the kind organizers of the event for our sign in, and eventually invited to eat a few snacks. While eating we had a chance to listen to a guest speaker, Miguel Trelles, who spoke about certain people of Panama named the Kuna. He spoke about their tradition, mainly about their form of art called the Mola. This form of art originated from women painting wonderful designs on their bodies, and its popularity soon brought it to clothing! We even had a chance to paint a bit and make our own “Mola.” Overall, this event was fun to attend and I look forward to many more in the future.

Career

Coming into Baruch I was under the impression that everything I would need to succeed in my future career would be in my classrooms. But on the contrary, I had realized that my classrooms would not give me one vital thing I would need. The skills too actually get the job. To fix what seemed some irrelevant at the time, my friends and I attended a Resume Workshop given by ALPFA. In this workshop I learned that three main things separate me from being able to get my prospected job and being unemployed. Those three things are: LinkedIN, a resume, and the elevator pitch.

The elevator pitch is basically sixty seconds in which you have to give your potential employer a quick summary of who you are and what you have done. In my mind it seemed easy but when we started practicing I had come to the realization that I was way in over my head. Then came the resume portion of the workshop. Again my ignorance seemed to prevail because yet again I believed it would be a walk through the park. As you can guess I was wrong. I realized some much information on my current resume could have been phrased differently or was unnecessary. Thankfully I had no idea what LinkedIN was so I listened attentively as they described how essentially it was social media for potential employers and employees without the carefree social aspect. Overall I would recommend that this workshop be attended.

This week, I attended an event hosted by ISO(International Student Organization). It was an internship workshop intended to help any international students to understand and be better prepared to eventually get an intership. While I myself am not an international student, there was still a lot of valuable information that I got by attending. The presenters were clear and friendly and they made the entire event welcoming and inclusive. I had gone with the intention of learning more about the process and difficulties of finding and securing an internship that would be enjoyable and beneficial to my future career prospects. In that sense, it fell short of my needs. Not in any way at the fault of the presenters. I merely misunderstood the premise of the workshop. The description was lacking and I was initially unaware of what ISO stood for. As such, I believed it was a workshop intended for the general populace of Baruch. I was mistaken. It was often very specific in discussing the ways in which the internship process differs for international students. However, despite that I still gained valuable insight into the internship system. I was told what resources there are for finding an internship. The hours and procedures of all pertinent offices and people. It was, over all, not what I expected but it was informative and fun. There were plenty of people, all of whom were friendly, and more than enough snacks. They discussed their club and how they worked and asked if anyone was interested in joining. I am already a member of three clubs and thought a fourth would be excessive. Even still, I was tempted to take them up on their offer. It was a very enjoyable experience, even if I felt a bit out of place. I will most certainly be exploring more school events in the future.

Latinx Heritage Month Mocktails & Paint

On Tuesday September 12th I attended the Latinx     Heritage Month Mock Tails&Paint event with Alex . Upon arriving and signing in we were served an assortment of snacks like churros and flan which was followed by featured guest speaker Miguel Trelles. Mr. Trelles briefly spoke about the indigenous people of Panama known as the Kuna and their traditional art form known as mola. Mola which originated with women painting their bodies with colorful geometric designs soon began to be placed on cloths and clothing to be sold to Panamas European settlers. Following the information section we were then able to observe various examples of molas and eventually attempt to design and paint our own versions of a mola on cloth.I’m not the most artistic or neat person so I cant say that mine came out looking too amazing but the overall experience was very fun.

Academic

I attended the General Interest Meeting for NABA@Baruch on September 7th with Mayer and Malik, where we learned about NABA and the perks we can get for becoming a part of the organization. During the first week of school, the three of us were bored and wandering around the school with no aim. Somehow, we found our way into BSU’s club room, where we met a lot of school people. We spent the first few club hours just hanging out, telling stories, laughing at jokes, and other things. Once we entered the room, we saw all the people we had met in that club room, and hung out until the presentation started. They also had food prepared and served to all of us, which was great, and afterward, everyone just introduced themselves to each other. I definitely enjoyed the environment, and I will definitely become a part of this club. They also helped me guide through blackboard and cuny first, and set goals for me by the end of this semester, and they’ve been helping me through the semester. Therefore, this will be my academic submission.

Hillel Event

Last Wednesday I attended Hillel’s Parsha and Pizza weekly meeting. There were about 20 people there and everyone was very warm and welcoming. Each week one student prepares a short 10-15 minute lesson from that week’s Torah (Bible) portion and teaches it to the rest of the group. This leads to an open discussion about the weekly portion and the lesson that was shared, all while enjoying some pizza. The discussion was very interesting and engaging with many people participating and adding their opinions. It was a really enjoyable event that I am looking forward to on Wednesday and is a great way to meet some really awesome people.

LatinX Opening Ceremony

Coming from a predominantly white high school. I thought the opportunity to join a club for Hispanic students would be a great opportunity. I was immediately greeted with some loud Latin music and people dancing and talking loudly, very Latino! There was Latin food being served and the opportunity to sign up for various clubs, of which I signed up for LASO.

There were dancing games going on, people volunteered, and we all laughed as they played “Musical Chairs” although there was a twist that there weren’t actually chairs but rather you had to quickly find a dance partner instead. This was just a glimpse into what LASO is all about and it seems like a high energy club that I look forward to being a part of.

I also found out that a couple of people that I used to run track against are also Colombian (Vamos Colombia!) and I thought that was very fitting because we used to run against each other but now we were able to connect through our heritage. This is what LASO is all about, connecting people through a commonality, which is that we can all relate through our experiences of being Latino.

I’m glad that I found a club that I can look forward to being a part of. Coming into Baruch I knew I wanted to be a part of something new, something that I hadn’t been a part of in high school. LASO seems like the perfect club where I can meet new people, make friends, and have a lot of fun. I’m excited for what’s next.