Month: November 2017

I went to a Career Event in October, it was mostly for the business department. I saw finance, marketing and accounting stands explaining the opportunities and events that contribute to these majors. When I first came to college I didn’t know what major I was doing. I thought I was going to do something business based. However now I’m a Biology major, I don’t know if I will change my major again or stay as a biology major. But the event opened up to me more information and knowledge on the many other majors I was interested in. I wondered if I should do a double major or a minor in another interest. I realized if I don’t take the time and effort to make myself go out and find things I was either interested or curious about, I wouldn’t know what to do as a career. I have to ask questions and find information, although I found it very confusing at first with the many offices in Baruch. I find myself feel productive rather than doing what is necessary of me. It is a type of work ethic I should learn to do to achieve.

Today I stopped by the STARR center in hopes of receiving some career help and things like that.   I came in and was warmly greeted by the staff at the desk. As it was too early for the walk-in appointments to commence, I asked the staff member about the services the career advisers offered and if there was anything I should keep in mind about the process of fixing my resume. She told me that the advisers help assess your strengths and weaknesses in terms of subjects and interests and what degree you should pursue that meets your goals and needs in your personal life. She said many students come into the office with no idea of what they want to  do with their lives or career-wise and afterwards they find themselves all sorted out. When assessing what career choice would be a good fit for a student, the advisers tend to start with their personality and what they like to do in their free time. To get a clear picture of what this personality may look like, they ask the student to take a personality test focused towards careers online or use their very own Focus 2 Assessment. After this, the adviser matches the personality matches the student had with jobs that use those similar areas and suggest the student look into it. If they like it then they can take courses tailored for that degree or profession. Aside from that, what I learned is that I need to add more things to my resume while still keeping it to one page and make sure that those items are specific to the career or position I am applying for in the future.

In the past September, I went to the Career Fair that Baruch hosted in the gym. It was a business professional event so I had the opportunity to meet many business professionals and I used it as an opportunity for networking. Many of them are Baruch alumni, which makes  it easier for me to talk to them because we have went through similar situations. There are also campus recruiters in the career fair, and I talked to a few to do some research on the companies. The recruiters are really helpful in terms of offering information about their companies, which clears up a lot of things for me. The business professionals even made presentations no how to better present ourselves. Overall, the Career Fair is helpful to me and all the other Baruch students. It was a great opportunity to network and learn about companies other than the well-known firms and corporations. The Career Fair gave me some suggestions of what I should do in the future and where I should be heading to.

I wasn’t really sure what to do for the career blog so I decided to stop by the STARR Career Development Center. I’ve recently been thinking about applying for internships for the spring semester, but wanted to better my resume. I currently work in retail so having a super professional resume isn’t as important as having one for an internship. When I went to STARR I found exactly what I needed, someone to review my resume. I meet with a girl named Victoria, she was really helpful. Although we didn’t have much time she helped me and gave me pretty good tips. First we review my resume’s format and how I can move things around to create a better flow of things. She even noticed how my font color wasn’t all the same, I didn’t even notice that. We moved onto wording, she said having a power verb can help emphasis descriptions of jobs better. She showed me different examples and gave me a booklet i can refer to when I make my edits. I also learned what a cover letter is, before I wasn’t really sure. From my understanding of what she said its a way for employers to know a bit about you while getting a grasp of your writing skills. Overall the experience was informative and I definitely would take the tips she gave me into consideration when editing my current resume and writing my cover letter. I will for sure be visiting STARR again throughout my time at Baruch.

Some day last week Iris and I decided to go visit the STARR, the career center at Baruch. Iris wrote a much better description of our experience there so I highly recommend you to stop reading mine and scroll down until you reach hers. Im not going to lie, the only reason I went was for this blog post. After we walked in a guy approached us and asked if we needed his help. After explaining to him that we were just here to check it out, he kindly explained to us that there are certain office hours where we can just walk in and certain hours where we have to set up appointments. After we left I thought to myself how I will never go into that room ever again and that it was a waste of time. During our last freshman seminar class Ronni and Ambar were explaining the benefits and great things STARR offers. After Ronnie gave a whole speech about how many kids get jobs through STARR and after Ambar spoke about how many students during their junior year get internships, I decided that I will go to STARR and stop acting like an idiot. The whole point of college is to get a job and if there is a program at Baruch that is specifically designated to help us reach our dream job, why would I not use it? I will definitely be visiting STARR soon thanks to our FRO class and especially to Ronnie and Ambar.

A while back on October 3, i decided to attend the workshop on public accounting with Grant Thornton. Having made the decision to major in finance, i figured any additional knowledge on accounting could never hurt. At the workshop, i found out that most students at the workshop are juniors and seniors, which i kind of expected with it being hosted by an actual accounting firm, but hey, it feels nice to be different sometimes. During their presentation,  l learned some potentially useful information about the different positions in an accounting firm as well as developing a sense of what they actually does, they had us do activities on solving accounting problems, but that’s a bit of a stretch for me since i’m not knowledgeable at all in the field. Overall, in terms of helpfulness of the workshop, i would suggest it to anyone who’s interested or plan to major in accounting, it gives you an opportunity to interact with firms and really learn about what you will be doing in the future. I personally don’t see myself pursuing a career as an account, but of course there are others that does, in which case these kinds of workshops would be really helpful. Also, i liked the fact that this workshop does not require rsvp, i already messed it up once because the event i was trying to attend is full. I’m just not good at remembering to do things on time….

These days, I’m having hard time deciding what I am going to do in the future. I am a international student with the student visa. Lots of my brothers friends went back to Korea because it is so hard to get a working visa here since the president has changed. All they were saying to us was “Survive in United States by finding ways to remain here when you still have your student visa.” I know I still have 4 years left, but I still don’t know what I’m going to major in, and I do not have any plan for anything. Everything makes me so confused. I went to the Starr Career Development Center with my friend who already knows what he wants to do and has lots of questions about it. Then I felt more confused. Now I major in Biology but I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do with it and whether I am going to continue studying it. Therefore, even though I went to Starr Career center, it was not that helpful for me this time. When the person was asking what I need help for, I did not really have lots of questions as my friend. Since my friend thought that Starr career center is a very helpful place, I should visit there later when I get to know even a little sense of my plan for the future. However, it was still a great experience that now I know that there is a place that can help me decide my career for the future.

          It has been about 3 moths at Baruch and I have just finished my midterms. Road to final tests so Yayy! As the time passed by , a sense of declaring a major popped up in my mind. Apparently, I have not declared a major as I still don’t know which career is suitable for me. I had to narrow down my interests but I still can’t figure out by myself what exact path I should take. Fortunately, in my freshman seminar, I was told that I can ask help from Starr Career Development Center for helping me choose the right major for me. I went there even though I did not make an appointment and one guy from Starr came to me and asked if I needed any help. I had a chance to discuss about my career with a counselor and he did help me choose my major, CIS (Data Analytics). Moreover, I made my resume last year but I’ve got no one to check it for me until I got to Starr. I finally got the chance to show my resume to the counselor and he patiently helped me correct it. I felt quite satisfied with the service Starr provided.  After all, I learned that it is completely normal to be undecided about your major and you will always have someone to help you for it in Baruch. Regardless of which academic year you are in, Starr Career is a highly recommended place for every Bearcat. It is totally worth a shot! 

Not many clubs took caught my attention; however two clubs did just that. The Archery Club and Bio-Med club-I think- are two very fun and interesting clubs offered at Baruch. There was a practice session on Saturday for the Archery club and last Thursday there was a suture session in the Bio Med Club. The theme of the BIO MED club changes every week in order to keep it interesting and cover a wide variety of topics. The way I heard about the Bio Med Club was through my lab instructor and then also through Jennifer in the Natural Sciences department.  The Archery club appears to only hold practices on Saturdays so for some people that may be a turn off, however they do have a whole auxiliary gym to themselves to shoot around in and it’s a very cool addition to Baruch. Myself focusing on being a BIO major I found that it was hard to find a club that was not business related in a business school so it took me a while to settle in. But once I heard about some clubs through my professors instead of through emails I found myself going to those more often than others. I am ususally busy on Thursdays but when I get the chance to go I like to go to the Bio Med club since they provide food and drinks and also promote a relaxed environment-kind of like a lab class-. I highly recommend some people interested in majoring in a science to check out the BIO MED club.

-Konrad Szenfeld

 

College has started. What am I going to major in? What do I need to do for my career? Am I on the right track? At some time, all college students ask themselves these questions and are unaware to head in the right direction. Sometimes sources are available but you don’t know where to go to get these answers. As Baruch students, we have an amazing place for us to visit to learn about career fairs, internships, jobs, mentoring, and much more. There are people attending who may be there with the questions just like you and together collective learning and attending workshops provides with the help you may need to reach your goals. At some time during anytime of any type of career we are evaluated at what we are doing and can do. The Starr Career development center helps you to get your resume reviewed to set you on a path to better presenting yourself to recruiters. One of the biggest challenges in the Job market are interviews. Your interview along with your resume really shape up how your employer interviews you and your acceptance is determined. Starr Career Development helps us by guiding us with the right steps to shape our careers. It is truly a precious resource available to Baruch College Students. Approach the Career center and you will be helped by someone at the reception.