Month: November 2017

On November 16, I traveled to room 6-119 to sit in for Baruch’s Republican Club sit down regarding the North Korea situation. I went to fulfill my student life post requirement. I have to say, not only did this club open my eyes to the wide array of clubs offered here at Baruch, it was very interesting! They had an excellent panel of knowledgeable people who offered insight into the current North Korea issue.

In the beginning of school I got lost walking down the third floor looking for one of my classes during club hour. I ended up near the Starr and the Small Business Center. I only heard about both of them but never really cared to look into either. From Fro, I learned that these would be both beneficial to me, I just never thought I would have the time to look into it. I first attended the start up company one which taught me valuable skills and help me develop my ideas on my already thought out company. They connected me with a academic advisor that deals with businesses. I  set up a meeting with him. He taught me everything there is to know about starting a business. From how to make patent to how to get my idea out in the open to how I should start. It was quite amazing to know that Baruch had all of this offer me with no cost at all. Next was Starr. I learned there how to sign up for internships and create a resume. There were students there to help guide you to do these things and to help you make a star account. This was beneficial for me because I thought to interact with professors who can help me develop and add to my resume and connect me to people where I can get an internship with. At the end of the day, being lost was the best thing that can happen because I was able to attend these two amazing programs during club hour and learnt so much.

This past Thanksgiving Weekend, I got together with my ROTC friends from high school, my friends who just came back from boot camp and are now Marines, and also my Sergeant Major from my ROTC unit. We all went to visit the memorial site of Tower 1 by World Trade Center. My Sergeant Major gave us a little history lesson about the events of that day, because he was one of the responders who helped provide relief. He was stationed in Okinawa when things went down, however his base got an emergency call from Langley telling to dispatch everything they had to provide aid for those who were in dire need of relief. He was on one of the first helicopters back from overseas to provide relief, and when he got back he was stunned by the sheer destruction caused by the towers when they went down. He explained how the entire surrounding neighborhood was all covered in dust to the point where he could not see even a few feet in front of him. It took hours for the dust to settle, and when it did he and his unit helped search for survivors, as well as lockdown the entire island of Manhattan. He remembers how he saw people walking on the bridges, even in the tunnels to get out or off them, and how a lot of people were crying and such throughout the day. Unfortunately, he lost his friend who was stationed by the towers as part of a security detail, and he still does not let this day go from his memory. It really taught me a lot about the actual events that happened during that day, how he felt and how others felt during the catastrophe that happened.

This photo shows the accounting office that my dad and I use for our family business.

Now, I have had to go to this office a few times in the past, however this time was different. While dropping off files, my contact, Mr. Chen offered me to have a show around the office, since I would be meeting him more often when I do more drop offs for my dad. He told me how his office is the holder of a few dozen files of other family-run companies, while also having some major ones like Nature Republic. He showed me the different positions, ranging from accountancy, to business lawyers, which was a very interesting experience for me. As many times as I have been to his office, I have never seen the business lawyers side of it, which to me enabled me to understand a lot more stuff because of things he has helped me and my family with in the past. It showed to me how I can be a part of his firm, or even get a jump start in other major companies like Goldman Sachs with internship opportunities at this office. Overall, it was an amazing experience, knowing that I had this connect, and how I can potentially have a major head start in the financial world.

On the ninth, I went with Diamond Tiara Madison to the Majors and Minors fair at Baruch to find out more about prospective majors and minors. I was pretty set in my major so I was mainly interested in finding more about the different minors offered at Baruch. It was a smaller fair than the club fair or the study abroad fair and also less interesting but I needed to make this blog post, my final blog post for Freshman Seminar, so I went and I took a picture as I went through the door. We looked at every table and gathered paper and flyers in our hands that I will probably never read because in the cursory glance I gave them at the fair, I knew that the information was just that of the Baruch website in a less convenient form, paper. The journalism major table had a particularly unwieldy packet. It was ridiculously thick, at least a centimeter, held together by a single staple, available in varying colors fanned out on the table. All the pages were single sided. Not very inspiring but I am somewhat interested in writing so I took it. I also took a flyer from the language department because I needed to contact the Japanese Professor about taking the class and I was not sure about how to do so and the website had been unhelpful. Soon after, we approached the student advisement table and I asked her about this and she said I had to go directly to the office which was like the worst scenario to me. But I went before communications class and as it turns out, on the conveniently taped papers in the office, I just needed to email him. Also he was not there. But I had to talk to him in the end but it was fine.

About two weeks ago, I attended the CUNY Undergraduate Symposium at the offices of Goldman Sachs. It was brought to my attention through my Baruch email, and it really interested me since Goldman Sachs is such a competitive and highly renowned company. With its prestige reputation, I hope to associate with this company in the near future.

At the event itself it started at 10 am until 5 pm. It was a day of getting to know the company and hearing its story, and the various careers people have within the company. They toured us around the company, and how the company ran on a regular work day. Everyone was had a hustle and bustle attitude and were merely focused on what they had to get done around the office. The people there were really nice, and it was nice to hear the different stories of individuals.  Seeing the world of a corporate office, it really inspired me to further fulfill a career in the industry and made me more excited for the future of being in that world. I learned many things about Goldman Sachs and I hope to see myself in one their offices after I graduate from school.

 

A little over a month ago, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Upper East Side, right near Central Park. It was a really nice day out, so I decided to walk here, because I also live on the Upper East Side, so its pretty close, not too far.

Anyways, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is really great because you can pay any price you want, and being a college student, that is great. I never pay the suggested $25 when I come here, ever.

I really enjoy coming to this museum. It has a lot going on, and its huge. The building itself is really pretty and I also really like the different cultures and diverse aspects of each culture. I am not really a fan of art, but I did like seeing all the Italian artwork from centuries ago, it was really cool. It was also really interesting to see the different weapons and aspects of the Medieval times in the medieval section of this museum.

My favorite section had to be the Ancient Egyptian aspect of the museum. I have always been fascinated with Ancient Egypt and its super distinctive and unique culture, so they Egyptian aspect was really fun for me. I really like that the Egypt section has a small scale model of a pyramid, which you can go inside and they have information, facts, and artifacts inside from the Ancient Egyptian era. They also had a sarcophagus, which was really so intriguing to see. I think it is very amazing that we have actual Egyptian goods from 1000’s of years ago, and that I am able to see them with my own eyes in 2017. I know that the Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side is offering an Ancient Egyptian Mummies Exhibition until the new year, so I will definitely make sure to stop by here and see it! Its definitely right up my alley.

Earlier in the semester, I attended the Study Abroad Fair at Baruch College. It was a good experience for me, especially because studying abroad is something I have always wanted to do. Everybody there was super helpful to me because they provided a lot of helpful, and useful information about the variety of study abroad programs that were offered.

I also learned about all the different types of programs offered for credits. They have one year programs, one semester programs, as well as winter and summer programs. For myself, I think I would benefit the most from doing either a winter or spring program just because I plan on trying to get a job or an internship in the city very soon.

I also learned that a lot of the study abroad programs have study abroad internships, which would be a really unique and fun experience. That would definitely benefit me career wise because it would give me a different kind of work experience and maybe even an advantage. It would strengthen my resume and would probably be an aspect that a lot of people can offer to potential future employers.

I think I would really enjoy doing a study abroad internship program in a European country such as Ireland, England, or Italy. I am very familiar with the cultures here because I am all of these ethnicities. I am currently in school to be an accountant, and by doing an internship program in a professional setting abroad, would look really great for me because it would provide me very unique, very diverse experience with people of a different culture and possibly even a different language, which would be a great aspect to be able to improve upon. I look forward to hopefully participating in one of these study abroad internships very soon!

Having a job already, I honestly did not think that I needed any help with my resume. However, on Monday I decided to set up an appointment for a peer to review my initial resume for the sake of this blog post on Wednesday. At the STARR center, I learned that although my resume was good, it needed a lot of revision to make it more professional. The appointment was pretty self-explanatory, she reviewed my resume for about 30 minutes and she made a lot of revisions. These were merely “superficial”, she didn’t go bullet by bullet and look at the wording of my job descriptions specifically, that would happen in the final resume review.

At the review, I received a thirty-page packet that she (Zoe, the peer reviewer) described as my Bible to resume writing; the Resume & Cover Letter Writing Guide. In it, there were steps to write your resume and there were also about five or six examples of resumes for specific majors and job experiences. I learned about formatting a resume; for example, a resume should have 0.5″ margins, not the standard 1″.

Some examples of revisions that Zoe made for my resume was to take out the summary I had at the beginning of my resume. I remember I had added it because I thought I needed it for retail jobs; but I was sadly mistaken.

One other thing I learned is that I need to join clubs. Apparently employers are looking for people who engage in a variety of different activities outside of class. However, they need to be related to my major. Lexicon, USG, and Baruch’s Key Club (I don’t know the name of it) are examples of clubs where I can possibly interject CIS and show not only creativity but my versatility.

Either way, this resume review was greatly appreciated and greatly needed.           

As a orthodox Jew, coming to Barcuh was terrifying to even thinking about, especially coming straight from Israel. In Israel I learned all about Judaism and for one full year that’s all I did. So coming to a conservative public school, I wouldn’t have any of that here. In Baruch, it was all math, science, English, and barely anything to do with religion.

Before I got here I received an email from the Hillel at Baruch and they told me to stop by during orientation to which I did. They took both my email and my phone number and would constantly send me messages to update me on what was going on the upcoming week. Hillel is a organization that is run by Jewish people to help inform either people who are either Jewish, not Jewish, or not religious about what they do and how to be more connected to the Jewish world.There is one in almost every college. If they don’t have a Hillel, they definitely have a chabad. They organize programs, events both in school and out of school to help students meet each other and interact with each other. They also have programs with different Hillels fromother schools in the city. They bring in phenomenal speakers who are Jewish to help students find their passion and what they want to do with their lives. They recently brought in someone in the army to speak about his experience.

There was one event that I attended with Michael and Stephan that basically just brought all the jewish students a Baruch together and made everyone feel at home. It was really nice and comforting to be in such a great environment and to always know that even at a place like Baruch where religion isn’t so prominent, you would always have the Hillel there to guide you.