On November 7th, I went to a STARR Cover Letter Workshop led by Ricki Weitzen, a STARR Center Career Coach who explained to us the idea of a cover letter and how to write them.  I’ve started my professional life fairly early, I had a polished resume and a Linkedin by the time I was 16. Despite focusing on my career and reading tens of articles on how to write my resume, I never understood, or even cared to understand, the purpose of a cover letter.

This workshop made me finally realize the importance of having a good cover letter and clearly explained how to make one. Through the use of detailed and interesting Powerpoint slides, Ricki explained how to make a good cover letter which would stand out to a potential employer, she explained that a good cover letter should be personalized for the job you are applying to and that it should include facts about you, arguments on why you should get the job, what value you would hold for the company and that you could also include your additional qualifications such as languages you know and programs you might be proficient in.

The workshop was very interactive and encouraged the participants to answer questions after each key point of the presentation. After this presentation I believed in usefulness of the STARR center and I’ll definitely be coming back for more guidance and useful career advice.

On Tuesday, 10/10 me and my friend visited the Museum of Visual Arts at the School of Visual Arts in the Kips Bay neighborhood in NYC.

The museum was very inspiring to me since all the pieces there were created by students of the School of Visual Arts who are my peers.

I saw beautiful exhibitions of photographs as well as painting and sculptures made by the students.

One of the exhibitions shown portrait photos of new yorkers dressed in traditional costumes of many different cultures, showing the cultural diversity of the people that live in our city.

Another exhibits shown paintings created by people incarcerated at Rikers Island which in my opinion is a very good idea because it brings consolation to inmates, helps resocialize them and show their human side to the society.

I’ve seen exhibitions made by many students who came from abroad bringing their cultures to NYC and incorporating them in their art which inspired me to also try to express myself through art since I think that my culture is underappreciated in America and I would like other students to gain exposure to it.

This trip to museum was fun and inspiring and I will definitely come to visit it again.

On Thursday September 7 th I went to a trading seminar organized by Traders@Baruch.

I’ve been trading ever since 8th grade so this club was my natural choice among all the other organizations in Baruch ecosystem. As I arrived on the trading floor I saw 73 dressed up upperclassmen setting up their trading stations. As it turned out most of them, unlike me, had been there before.  The president of the club stepped to the front and told us “Finish setting up your computers, the first competition is starting in 5 minutes”. Wow I though, just like real world trading this club is strictly about business, there are no introductions for curious freshmen (there weren’t many of those), no long speeches and wasting time; trade or die, just how I like it. The first round started 1 second after I finished the express setup of my trading desk, for the next 300 seconds (that’s how long the competition lasts) I could hear my brain sizzling inside of my head as I drew lines, made orders and scanned the trading books for arbitrage opportunities that came and went within seconds as the fastest traders filled them before anyone else could understand what happened. After the 300 intense seconds came to an end the results were shown on a huge display in front of the room, my name was at the 5th place, I felt proud and knew that this club is where I will belong for the next 4 years.

After the competiton we listened to a professor explaining option pricing models and bunch of other technical aspects of trading which we will need to understand in order to compete in this year’s Rotman Trading Competition at MIT. After the lecture I talked to other club and E-board members, they were very friendly and recommended me to apply for their mentorship program which gives freshmen and sophomores a great opportunity to learn how to trade and meet people from the industry. My interview is tomorrow so wish me luck 🙂