FTA's FIRST YEAR SEMINAR

One afternoon after a long day of school  me, Taja, Michael, and Rocki went to the Arlette Tebele pop up shop. Arlette Tebele is an artist and famous instagramer known for her fun, playful and edgy art. A graduate from FIT and born and raised in Brooklyn she was no stranger to New York. She is famously known for making everything yellow especially with her yellow emoji, which is her logo. Walking in to the pop up shop I did not know what to expect. Although I have an interest in art I prefer art history rather than modern and contemporary art. Although it was not my forte I decided to give it a try and was pleasantly surprised. From the first minute I walked in, Arlette Tebele’s felt very present walking in because the walls were all painted yellow, and there was a big poster of her yellow emoji logo. Walking around the pop up shop featured a variety of art, it had wall art, paintings, graffiti, digital drawings and much more. The art that was portrayed at the pop up shop was modern and very much our generation. The art featured celebrities such a Kanye West, Jay-Z, Michael Jordan, Snoop Dogg, and many more. It also featured a lot of cartoon art with well known characters such as bugs bunny and daffy duck. An interesting aspect of the pop up shop was that they would ask if you wanted a picture, then use a polarized camera, print it and sign your name and put it on the wall. This was a really creative aspect of the pop up shop delivered by Arlette Tebele. All of us interested in this took a picture signed it and put it up on the wall with all the other Arlette Tebele fans.

This week I visited the Starr Career center on the third floor to look into internships for next summer. I was greeted pleasantly and was told that all of the information pertaining to internships were listed online. I was a bit confused due to the fact that most internships online required a GPA, but I was told at the career center that I simply had to search “0.00 GPA” in the search bar and internships would appear. I proceeded to do so but much to my disappointment, nothing appeared. This experience saddened me and I’ll be visiting the Starr Career center again to inquire what went wrong.

I attended a club fair with Konstantinos, Korin and Ceren several weeks ago in the gymnasium and we browsed through multiple clubs. I signed up for the SOCA Baruch club. The SOCA club is the Student Organization for Caribbean Appreciation. I gravitated towards to this club due to my Caribbean heritage. The club itself holds Caribbean themed events, such as game nights, Galas and meetings.                                                                                                              

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.