First-Year Seminar FMA

The real and only reason why I attended Baruch Voices was to complete my blog for my FRO class. This was probably the reason for a lot of the audience to come, since the announcers reminded everyone to take their picture for the FRO blogs. I thought the Baruch Voices would be very plain and simple, including of poems and stories of everyone’s experiences. I wasn’t wrong but there was something special about the event. Baruch voices included poems, raps, inspirational messages, and personal stories. Although these appear very plain and simple, there were a lot of times where I felt like we shared the same experiences. I felt connected being surrounded by my fellow peers who are all new to this environment. There were a lot of times where I caught myself laughing or feeling empowered, a roller coaster of emotions. I really enjoyed a couple of stories such as: a student talking about his first week in Baruch and his first time experiencing Popeye’s chicken and the happiness he felt from eating a Popeye’s chicken. Or another story about someone who was interning at a hospital and while shadowing a doctor, messed up really badly with a patient and almost got him more injured. There were also inspirational speeches. One inspirational speech that stood out to me was about her individualism and how she is perceived but she does not care about others opinion and “how dare they judge her?”. I thought that I would gain nothing from this experience and it would be a complete waste of time besides being able to complete my blog for FRO. I was wrong, I actually enjoyed going to Baruch Voices and also made a friend through it. So it wasn’t too bad and I felt pleased that all of us in that room had the same feeling of worry but excitement about our new adventure together.

 

Sat in the front row on the right. Forgot to take a picture of me in the frame lol.

On November 3, I went to Baruch Voices with a few my friends. It was a bit difficult trying to figure out where it was because in the back of my mind, I knew it was at the multi-purpose room, but my friends didn’t believe me and thought that it was at BPAC or the Lawrence and Eris Field Building. We decided to check out BPAC first since it was closer to Baruch’s main entrance, but we got lost in the process of trying to get there, so we went to the multi-purpose room instead. By the time we got there, we were around ten minutes late, but thankfully the event didn’t start yet, so we didn’t miss anything. It was an enjoyable experience listening to perform their monologues. Many of them were about the same topic, which was adjusting to Baruch and starting a new life in college. Nevertheless, it was great listening to different people share their experiences, dreams, and aspirations. Some of the monologues really stood out to me. One of them was about a girl facing discrimination for being an African American. She explained how teachers were shocked to see her give correct answers eloquently because of the way she dressed, the way her hair looked, but most of all, the color of her skin. Despite this, she ignored all of the unwarranted judgment and holds herself high, proclaiming herself to be an over-achiever and an academic scholar. There was also a monologue about a boy’s hospital experience. He thought his life would be better once he left high school, but that was not the case. It was really funny because it was entirely a blunder. He kept making comical mistakes one after another, and he provided funny commentary to help everyone envision his experience. In a way, I kind of pitied him because some of the things he did were terrible to a level that should not be spoken. In the end, I had a good time at Baruch Voices. I thought it was going to be boring and dreadful, but it was a lot better than I expected.

I decided to come to Baruch for better education in order to get better career. Even though I am a freshman now, my final goal is successful career, and I think I should start learning and preparing for it. Therefore, I decided to attend the On Campus Recruiting Workshop.

On-campus recruitment is a special program that recruiters from many famous companies to interview students on campus such as EY, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America. Students can interview for internship and full-tine job. Full time job is only open to seniors and internship opportunities is open to juniors (some freshmen and sophomores may be considered.)

In the workshop, the instructor explained steps about the On-Campus Recruitment program very specifically and answered our questions. She went over resume, cover letters, interview skills, and OCR deadline policies. For resume, she told us it will be better to limit the resume to one page and the format of the resume is really important. Interview is the most important part for getting a job opportunity. I learned that research about the company and position before the interview is very important because it provides more information to answer the questions and show you are really care about this job and this company. Also, she told us show your confidence, but try to avoid arrogance. Try to make eye contact and stay calm during the interview. After the interview, it is better to send a Thank You note to the people you meet. In this workshop, it provides me many important information that I didn’t know before. It gives me a direction to prepare my internship in the future. Therefore, this workshop is very helpful even though I am not applying for On Campus Recruitment right now. It provides me more information on how to achieve my goal and my career.

Attending the On Campus Recruitment Workshop, I went in not really having an idea of what it was, but came out of it knowing there is a great option for me in a few years from now. On campus Recruitment is a process of getting an internship, or even a job, during junior, or senior year (although some companies do recruit freshman and sophomore). The process is multi-stepped, involving an info session, applying, and interviews.

The first step of the process is attending a company’s info session. This involves meeting the representatives, or recruiters, and learning more about them. The presenter of the workshop told us to learn more about the company, and prepare questions to ask when meeting the representative.

After the info session, we have the option of requesting an interview on Starr search. The status after requesting will be pending until the company either accepts, declines, or “wait-lists” you. The presenter gave us some obvious interview tips, such as arriving early, and being confident, but not arrogant, but there was one thing that stood out. It was that at the interview, there was a greeter, which basically meant that not only were you tested during the interview, but also before it. The presenter also made it clear that an interview should NEVER be missed.

The presenter also went over tips for the resume, and cover letter. When it comes to cover letters (not all companies require a cover letter), she told us not to write a generic letter, and that we should sell ourselves by connecting our strengths to the position we are applying to. She also told us to be careful about what we put on the resume. Anything on the resume, we have to be prepared to talk about it. In addition, we should be careful about putting “excel proficient” on it. Overall, I felt I learned a lot from the workshop, and it is a great option to have on campus.

On campus Recruiting Workshop

Attending the on campus recruiting workshop made me realize how many resources Baruch actually has to help students enter and succeed in the work force. It is a great privilege to have a resource like the STARR Career Development Center. Despite the usual people looking for something to write their blog post about, I also noticed how the room wasn’t filled with freshmen, like in other workshops of this kind, instead, sophomores, juniors, and seniors completely filled the room. Most of these already had some experience in STARR search, and the fact that they were there, even though they had no blog post to write made me realize how helpful it actually is; and it was.

Before entering the room, I feared that the session would be somewhat confusing and that it would be difficult to get insight on specific situations within on campus recruiting, however, as the workshop developed, I realized that wasn’t the case. Even though the room was packed, it wasn’t that big, which allowed students to ask specific questions about problems they had in the pursuit of their dream job. Despite providing us with more information than we know what to do with, it was a great first step, in getting to know more about this amazing resource given that the whole dynamic of the process was explained in full detail, presenting all the outcomes, and how to engage each specific situation. Furthermore, the workshop included a virtual tour of STARR’s website, which accurately gave us insight about how to actually go through the whole process of applying for jobs on campus.

Most definitely, the workshop served its purpose perfectly, and surely, I will be back for more in the next semesters, as I begin my search for internships and potential job possiblities.

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.

On Thursday, November 9th I went to the Majors and Minors fair with Ben (who has appeared in all three of my blogs now). The reason I went was not to complete this blog but to provide support for a major I was heavily considering already. I wanted to know what major to pursue first before my career choice because I wanted to confirm my interest and I feel my major would lead to my choice in career and not vice versa (hence why I classes this as Career), and the fair did such that. I want to major in statistics and immediate saw the table corresponding for it. I met with Professor Robert Blau, (I believe) a professor in the statistics department. I told him that I was interested in statistics and instantly he asked me, “What is the probability of landing heads on a coin.” And I confidently replied, “one half.” But he said no, it’s either 0 or 1, which makes complete sense and overturned what I already knew about probability. He also gave me another lesson but this time about insider trading. He flipped a coin again and hid the side it landed on to himself. He said, “if it landed on heads, I’ll give you $100, if it landed in tails, you owe me $10.” All I had to choose was which side it had landed on, which was tails, and I chose correctly. Since he knew what it landed on before he asked, it was clear that he wouldn’t deliberately give me $100. I didn’t have to pay him either but he told me that that was insider trading. He finally gave me papers, one that had courses I need to take if I major in statistics, and another that had information on the major and the careers associated with it. I’m still undecided with my minor but it was nice to obtain a list of all the different minors that I will eventually narrow down. The fair as a whole helped me find useful information I was after and it was nice to meet Professor Blau. I encourage other classmates to attended the fair next time it comes about, even if you know what major you want to pursue.