Author: k.johnson6

Towards the beginning of the semester, I went to a Baruch soccer game or scrimmage (I am honestly not too sure) with a couple of other friends on Randalls Island. I completely forgot who the Baruch Soccer team was facing but I think that we won 3-2 in overtime or something like that. It was an interesting experience going to a collegiate sporting event for the first time at the school that I am attending. I’ve been to Rutgers and Princeton games before, and those were marginally more entertaining and fun due to the excitement and lack of sobriety within the students who were in attendance.

To be quite honest, I probably will stay away from sporting events for the rest of my tenure at this institution unless I am friends with one or several of the people who will be playing. Maybe I’ll go to a major basketball game if I know a lot of people are going. I am just not too big of a fan of CUNY athletics, as I am sure many other people feel the same way.

Randalls Island was not too far of a journey so I would not go to the extent of calling the trip a disappointment.

I forgot to take a picture of myself but I did save a snapchat of my friend.

A couple of weeks ago, a couple of friends and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art located on Fifth Ave. We went in order to complete a history extra credit assignment, which wanted us to explore and analyze the World War I and the Visual Arts exhibit on the second floor. The World War I and Visual Arts exhibit as a whole is quite bleak. Upon entering, visitors are met with souvenirs in addition to colorful pro-war propaganda posters. Deeper into the exhibit, it becomes increasingly dim due to the high concentration of works depicting the horrors of war. There are many lithographs that show how the war was not as glorious as initially portrayed by many countries. Such glorification was brought on by the desperation of the governments to receive both physical support in the form of enlistment and financial support in the form of bonds.

I would like to believe that I would have gone to the exhibit without being instructed to do so since I am quite interested in American history. I have avoided many places that attract tourist in Manhattan, and just recently I’ve started going to those places in hopes of those places not being overhyped.

I liked it. Perfect 5/7.

I only took a picture of the walk there. My bad.

Last Tuesday I attended the first Alpha Kappa Psi general informational meeting in an effort to try to expand my social circle and learn more about the fraternity itself. After sitting through the opening presentation, the brothers of the fraternity established themselves as ambitious, hopeful, and already successful individuals in the minds of many in the audience—or at least me—and they attributed much of the development of these traits to their role and efforts within the fraternity.

One could easily notice that Alpha Kappa Psi’s demographic at Baruch College largely consists of Asian/Asian-American students despite Alpha Kappa Psi not officially recognized as a club or fraternity/sorority that specifically caters towards individuals of Asian descent. Those who are familiar with Alpha Kappa Psi’s history would find this ironic due to its initial restrictive policies in regards to who was accepted; who were solely Christian males of the Caucasian race up until 1950. As an individual who attended school in a township where the Asian demographic is marginally higher than Baruch College’s, and as an individual who even had participated in clubs in which the purpose was to represent Asian-American culture, I still was quite astonished by the disproportionality in comparison to Baruch College’s demographic.

The purpose of that statement is not to suggest in any way that it is an issue of any sort or that I was bothered by this in any way; rather, it was to note that I was simply surprised by the lack of diversity in this specific fraternity. One could easily say the same thing about the disproportionate amount of African-Americans on the basketball teams at my former High School, yet some may expect it due to that similar disproportionality being depicted in the professional basketball leagues. Ultimately, I conclude that this feeling of surprise came from my lack of both familiarity and knowledge of student clubs/organizations at Baruch College, due to it being my first-semester.

I forgot to take a picture. My bad.