j.huang43 – First-Year Seminar FMA

Baruch Voices – Career

Two weeks ago after class, I went to go to the Baruch Voices to fulfill my Career post. However, I had a problem: I had no idea where exactly the event was going to take place. It took a couple of minutes of walking around the Newman building with my friend to finally find it. Thankfully, my friend and I arrived right before the event started. The seats in the room were almost completely filled so we quickly swiped in with our cards and sat down with some of the other people in our freshman block. Two announcers opened the event and started to call people up from other freshmen blocks. Several people went up and delivered their monologues, but there were two that I can remember more strongly than the other ones. The first one was about how people judge her skin deep and what clothes she wears. Her monologue was quite inspirational (and she was rocking that afro)! The second one was about a hospital job/internship (I’m not sure which one) and the way he told his story was hilarious. Some parts of the monologue were when the old man went “oof” when the speaker tried to lift him up to put him in a wheelchair and also when the old man went “flying in the air” because the wheelchair hit stop. Although normally I would be concerned for that old man, I couldn’t stop laughing in my chair. Other speeches were mainly about the struggles that other freshmen had when they started to go to Baruch or New York: the amount of time it took to commute, drivers vs. pedestrians, and even the amount of cockroaches. I originally thought that it would be a bore to sit there and listen, but I was unexpectedly having a good time listening to everyone share their stories.

Academic Life

My friends and I, who have yet to do our second blog post, decided that we would go to the MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, for our academic life post. We chose to go there because there were advertisements on the train about the fashion exhibit in MOMA. Not only that, but with our CUNY student IDs, we would be able to get in for free. So after class on Wednesday, my friends and I met up and headed towards MOMA. Finding the right entrance was a bit confusing, but eventually, we got our free CUNY tickets and went straight to the sixth floor, where the fashion exhibit was. Once we went up, we were instantly greeted with the gift shop on the right and two walls on the left explaining fashion and its exhibit. One of the walls also had a list of items that it had in the exhibit, ordered in alphabetically. We had to enter through this door to see the exhibit. On the other side, the room was dark, but still had enough light to see everything. As we walked around the exhibit, we noticed many familiar items, such as the Adidas Superstars and hooded sweatshirts from Champion. We also noticed many unique pieces. There was a “Dress Meets Body” Collection, where the pieces focused on body ideals and sent a strong message to others. There were also more normal pieces in the exhibit that focused more on just fashion. Unfortunately, I had to leave early, so I wasn’t able to explore the other floors, which had paintings, but the fashion exhibit was a great exhibit nevertheless.

The fashion exhibit in MOMA ends on January 28th, and I recommend you all to visit the exhibit, to make use of your free pass using the CUNY student ID to see some cool clothing!

Student Life

Latinx Heritage Month

I recently attended the Latinx Heritage Month Opening Ceremony on the second floor. The first thing I was greeted with upbeat Hispanic music that I did not necessarily understand, but I almost wanted to dance along anyway. There were two long lines and I jumped aboard with two of my friends, who I dragged along to keep me company. From those two lines, we got a plate of different meats and a drink after signing up for their newsletters. The plate of meats seemed to have Spam, lamb, plantains, and fried chicken. There were two selections of drinks. One was a mixture of orange juice and milk called Morir Soñando (which actually translates to “to die dreaming,” what a name!) and the other was an oatmeal and chocolate milk mix called Jugo de Avena. I chose to drink Morir Soñando. It tasted like an orange yogurt drink and I quite liked it. While we were eating, a game similar to musical chairs started. Instead of walking around chairs, there were no chairs and they danced to the music. The winner would get a delightful goodie bag. Unfortunately, I had to leave the opening ceremony early due to a previous appointment and missed watching the rest of the game.

Thinking back on the opening ceremony, I found the atmosphere very welcoming and I thought that if I wasn’t busy, I would have stayed longer (and maybe to get another drink too). I’m not sure if I’ll have the time to go to the other events the latinx student organizations will hold for the rest of this month and part of the next, but if I did, I would totally go to the other events. I also thought that if this is how other heritage months are going to be, I’ll definitely be planning some visits.