Uncategorized – Page 4 – Freshman Seminar Fall 17 FWB

Baruch IMG

A few weeks back I accompanied a few friends to a club meeting that everyone on campus was buzzing about. I knew nothing of this club, only that it was an investing group and that one needed to submit an application to join. Enticed by the challenge, I sat in on the interest meeting and watched as the entire room filled up with students from all grade levels. The number of people at the meeting was too much fro the room to handle and the IMG team had to turn many students away.

After attending the interest meeting, I was immediately hooked. I sent out my resume (after getting it checked over by the STARR office, which was coincidentally the topic of my last blog post) and waited. I got a response from one of the E-Board members congratulating me on making it past round one. I was surprised at the bureaucratic nature of this entire process and the strong hierarchy of the club. I suppose it mimicked a real life investment bank with its rigor of entry and professionalism.

After my very successful round two phone interview, my interviewer enthusiastically invited me for round three. I woke up early on a Saturday to go to Baruch and complete the final stage of this process. Dressed in a suit and tie and armed with 3 copies of my resume, I confidently entered the room, albeit slightly late, and put my best foot forward as I answered the questions of 3 separate interviewers.

About 3-4 days after, I received a message from the director congratulating me on gaining admission into the exclusive club and beginning my journey at IMG. Many of my friends unfortunately didn’t make it past round one which made me slightly sympathetic since they had in fact known about the club beforehand and I was more or less ignorant. I am excited to see what adventures this opportunity holds.

Soccer Game

I decided to go over to Randall’s Island for a Baruch Vs. John Jay soccer game. It ended in a Baruch loss and it felt like the longest game ever. I played soccer in High School and it was a fun quick paced game and seemed to go fast. I loved soccer and had a great time playing it. But the Baruch Soccer game i went to was so slow and had a few injuries causing the game to go even slower. There were two games that day but I showed up for the second game i could not have imagined what it would have been like if I was there for both games. Soccer is a great sport and teaches you to work as a team because in soccer you need your team. There are ten people on the field for each team and one person cannot beat the whole other team so you have to work with your other teammates in order to get a goal or win. If the team does not work and co-operate together than you will lose and lose bad. Soccer was a fun sport to me and that is why I enjoyed playing and I was interested in seeing Baruch play but the game did not seem to be a great one but it reminded me about the fun days I had playing soccer. I will always respect the sport and will love to mess around and play with my friends whenever we find the time to. It is one of those games that is easy to get together and play and a great thing to do when you are bored and do not wanna sit on your phone. Talking about this now makes me look forward to the summer when I can get together with my friends and play soccer together.

911 Memorial

I recently visited the 911 memorial museum. The experience is like no other. When I first arrived to see the gigantic holes in the ground with all the names of people who died around it, it hit me. I was standing in the exact spot where 16 years ago, the towers collapsed and people lives were taken. Upon arriving and being speechless and unable to move for a while, I made my way into the museum where it only gets worse. The museum is bigger than I expected and has all kinds of artifacts from that day. For example, they showed a fire truck from that day which was used. I kept moving and went into a room where they had pictures of every person that died along w a short summary of a loved one describing their lives a little. They described what kind of person they were and how they were related to the person who died. You can either look up people or sit in a dark room while a voice read out names one buy one and gave the brief summary. It was a chilling experience when each name was called out slowly, deliberately in a moderate tone voice. I finally made my way over to the timeline area where they go through each minute leading up to the planes. There was lots of video and places you can kind of duck in to watch short clips. It was loaded with information. One of the corners really got to me which was the suicide jumpers. Watching bobbies flying out of the building is something you don’t forget. Videos of the towers falling rapidly, crumbling like nothing is crazy too. Its almost hard to comprehend something that big falling. I can’t imagine the mess. The catastrophic event will forever be remembered, and I look at it from a different aspect knowing more information now. The devastation was unreal. I had a good experience at the memorial and museum.

P.S-I was yelled at for taking this picture, no photography is supposed to be taken of the model of the Twin Towers so this is a rare picture. Enjoy

Club Fair

I recently attended a club fair in the auxilery gym. I think it was agood experience overall. I first went over to the Accounting club and signed up for it immediately. I think its a pretty good idea to aquaint myself with other accounting majors. They could possibly help me in the future and knowing more people for connections is always smart. They seem to have good events going on to receive information from speakers. I was actually pretty surprisers as to how many clubs there are. Therereally is a club for everyone. They had everything stretching from video games to a republican debate club. I even briefly looked at the trading club. I got a lot of information from people in the club already. It seems like something I would pursue in the future. I should be receiving emails from them shortly for upcoming events. Also the food. Buy having cookies and cupcakes and pizza they draw you in. I probable;y went to four stands just for food and no interest in the club. It definitely is something I’d go to again just for food. The music seemed to be a bit too much tho. It built the atmosphere and the energy. The only thing was it was way too loud. I couldn’t hear the people when they were telling me about the club. I was basically just saying “yeah” and “okay” when they were talking. That was definitely an annoying apart. I think that most of these clubs being available now is great but getting a base knowledge of whats out there is good for now. I’m still a freshman and have plenty of time to join more clubs if I have more interest. Overall it was a good experience and I will definitely go again in the future, mainly for the food though.

Fall 2017 Undergraduate Day Prep Workshop

Fall 2017 Undergrad Day- Prep Workshop

Today, I attended Fall 2017 Undergrad Day-Prep Workshop, located in Newman Vertical Campus, second floor, room 2-190 at Baruch College. It started at 5:00 pm and ended at 6:30 pm. The workshop was open for all undergraduate and graduate Baruch College students. The workshop was designed to promote career awareness among students at Baruch College. It provided basic information about careers and education, types of industries and sectors, important skills, and the importance of a career pathway. Furthermore, it provided essential strategies for dressing for an interview, what should we know before, during, and after the interview, and what it takes to be a successful interviewee. The workshop guided students from what to wear, how to act, provided them with sample questions, and ultimately prepared them to give an excellent interview that will help them to obtain a job. This workshop also explained about skills, such as leadership skills in management, communication, and personal skills that the job seeker should develop in order to obtain an employment. Furthermore, the workshop was also useful and helped students to understand the importance of having a proper and standard resume, what skills, abilities, and education should be included in order to attract an employer. Moreover, important topics were covered such as how to format and develop an effective resume, how to grow a resume throughout the school period. Students who attended the workshop learned about online employment resources at Baruch College. Most importantly, the workshop educated students about the importance of networking. Students learned what networking is, how to get started, basic tips on how to maintain and develop the contacts once they are made, and how to build new networks. At the end, students were explained about the importance and impact of writing a thank you letter to each person who interviewed, collecting the business cards, so the job seeker will be sure enough to spell the names of interviewers correctly and include their titles. Overall, the workshop was very effective and eye-opening. It helped me to understand important information that is required to achieve my career goals.

9/11 Memorial Museum

I went to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum last Monday, September 11th. I thought it would be a very nice way to remember the tragic events that happened on September 11th, 2001. I had been to the memorial and museum before but I had never gone on the day those tragic events happened. The whole area around the One World Trade Center looks incredible from the futuristic looking mall to the two fountains with the names of all those that lost their lives on that day. the new trade center is an amazing building and has some of the best design in the whole city. The two fountains are where the two towers used to stand. the size of the fountains show you just how easily anything can be taken away. if something as big as a tower can be taken it makes you think about how fragile life really is. The two beams of light that the city shines into the night sky also adds a very nice element to the night and helps you reflect on everything that happened. My favorite part of the memorial and museum was the firehouse across the street was singing patriotic songs such as “God Bless America” which showed how while the country may seem divided right now we have and can come together when we need to. I thought that the 9/11 museum was also an amazing experience. it was able to educate you on the events that happened not just in New York but also in Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. but at the same time, it still kept the feel of a memorial and not just a museum. The City did an amazing job putting together this memorial and museum and museum and I am very happy I decided to go on September 11th, I believe that made the experience that much better.

Academic Workshop

This afternoon I went to a drafting workshop at the Baruch Writing Center on the 8th floor, where we, with the instructor, discussed drafting skills and strategies, especially being that I normally struggle with writing drafts for essays and papers this workshop helped me think about how to work on those skills and ideas on how to draft, as well as think about that in most situations, I would be the only one to see the draft. This workshop was a great opportunity to develop my early essay writing and drafting skills. The workshop instructor not only made helping us learn better drafting skills infotmative, but also fun, he made many little jokes and relatable statements about writing. He gave us 7 tips for writing drafts.

1. Write for yourself, rather than think about what a reader will say about it, write for yourself, you can make mistakes and make it messy, you can always fix it later.

2. Set a timer, give yourself a set amount of time, and just keep on writing without stopping until you’re done.

3. Write in lists, take notes, put up bullet points to gather what you want to write about, and use those lists to put together your main ideas.

4. Start with the easiest part first, you don’t have to start from the beginning, you can work from the middle out, and structure it later.

5. Freewrite, just write what’s on your mind, don’t restrict your writing, just write, you can change what you wrote later.

6. Write from memory, don’t look at notes or textbook pages, just write what you think was right, and you can always revist it later.

7. Start with a key term, use a key term from your assignment and work around it, make your writing based on what you can come up with based on that term.

This workshop took place on September 12th in NVC room 8-190

National Suicide Prevention Week

On September 11 I took part in a writing activity provided by students that were promoting National Suicide Prevention Week (September 10-September 16). They had set up a table on the second floor lobby and were handing out papers that read “I was made for ….” and students got to fill in the blank and post there responses up on a board. The activity was a food for thought and I’ll admit that what first attracted me to their setup was the food that was on display, but after being handed the paper I really got to thinking about a response. I ended up writing down that I was made for something amazing. The purpose of this activity was to send a message to those contemplating suicide, that there is always a reason to live and that suicide is never the answer. The “food for thought” event was the first of many events that will take place at Baruch during National Suicide Prevention Week. The last event of National Suicide Prevention Week will be on Thursday at five in the second floor lobby. There will be a candlelight vigil, where 121 candles will be lit honoring the 121 Americans that commit suicide everyday. An important resource that they provided was a pamphlet describing the role of Baruch’s Counseling Center and a list of services that it offers. Some of the services include Individual Psychotherapy, Group Therapy, and Crisis Counseling. I think that it was a great idea to hand out these pamphlets because it is important for every Baruch student to know that they are not alone and that there are many people on campus that can help them. In an environment as stressful as Baruch’s, it is crucial to discuss mental health and to provide students with easy access to the counseling.

Fro Blog Post

For my first enrichment workshop i joined a club. I joined the e-sports club because it seems pretty cool to play video games with other people on school time. The club looked pretty awesome and i got to meet a lot of new people who enjoyed the same games that i do. There was some confusion on where and when we meet but those issues will probably be ironed out since that was the just a general interest meeting. I also really liked that they split us into casual and competitive. I like playing games for fun and dont really care the competitiveness aspect of it. It was good but then it became great when the coke and the pizza showed up. A bunch of us I really enjoyed talking to people about video games, eating pizza, and just hanging out with people that have the same interests as me. It was also really cool to meet some talented cs:go players. The Baruch cs:go team won ten thousand dollars on a cs:go tournament and a lot of that team graduated so they are looking for more players. Luckily there are still some really good players in the club and i hope i can learn from them and get better at the game. I also want to learn to play some new games that they have. They had Overwatch, Hearthstone, and many other games that i want to play and get good at. The leadership of the club was also really funny and interesting. They kept the meeting fun and were very helpful if we had any questions. We also got to meet some new people that had some cool insights into the game and they told me some pretty cool things about some of my favorite games that i didnt know.

911 Memorial

This past Monday was the 16th anniversary of 9-11. This was my first time ever experiencing 9-11 in NYC even though I’ve grown up in New York (Long Island) my entire life. I was lucky enough to be able to visit the New World Trade Center on Monday this past week and it was a surreal experience to say the least. Although many parts were restricted to family only, as you walked around you were still able to see many different things going on. Experiencing the true emotions of families who had lost loved ones, firefighters, artifacts that survived from 2001, and the heavy police presence were all a surreal experience and gave a perspective that I had always lacked when talking or thinking about what happened on that day. One of the most eye opening and crazy things to see was the fire station located directly across the street. Ladder company 10 was one of the first to respond to the horrific crash, and had many people killed. On top of the deaths, the firehouse was destroyed. But as the New world trade center area was rebuilt, the firehouse was as well. Below you can see an image of this historic landmark as it shows many firefighters from around the city and that fire department as well and many flags as they remembered previous men and women who had passed. But experiencing the fireman and the flag flying at half mass was very sad, but also was re assuring in the sense that we only became stronger as a nation and a society and the rebuilding and mourning of that date symbolize the strength and fight of our nation. It shows that terrorism is a horrific thing, but it only made us stronger as a nation, and seeing the first hand responders only made the situation so much more real. The New World Trade Center will always be one of the most historic and significant places in the world, and seeing how much rebuilding, remembering and progress has gone into the entire area shows the progression of our nation and the importance of staying united as a nation. Being able to see the history of the area, experiencing it first hand on the 16th anniversary and living it in the moment was a life changing and truly unforgettable event, as I learned more about who were are and stand for as a nation from the people, sounds and surrounding artifacts more than I could have ever reading a book or online.