For this blog post, I decided to discuss my experience with the Focus 2 Career Interest Test. It presented me with all sorts of activities along with several different career options that I could consider as a major.  There were five categories: Work interests, personality, leisure activities, values, and skills.  The test also provided me with numerous career tools, which included: career planning readiness, self assessments, career exploration, take action plan, and career portfolio. While taking the test, it guided my through a reliable, intuitive career and education decision making model to help choose majors. It let me know what was being offered at the college that I attend and I was also able to explore several occupations and make informed career decisions. I was able to better understand how my interests . I feel like I was able to better identify where my skills can be applied along with what steps I can take to achieve goals as part of my career path.  Surprisingly, the jobs that they recommended that I look into had a lot to do with humanitarian studies, ones that require good communication skills, in other words I would have to be a “people person.” I was curious if this is the type of result I would get as it’s not too far from what I would to consider as a career goal. Occupational therapy, psychology, and a social worker was what popped up when the site gave me a list of job option or career choices I may want to consider or at least look into further to better understand what sort direction I will take in the future. All in all, this test was incredibly helpful especially since I am an undecided major. I hope I will try and pick classes that fit my abilities based on this test so I can find a passion and pursue it as a serious career option.

 

For the career development post, I decided to take the Focus2 Career Interest Test, where it prompted me with a series of activities or attributions associated with major areas of careers. I was tasked with rating these interests out of five stars based on my general interest or drive related to those topics. After taking the test, I was given the code EIS, which stands for Entrepreneurial, Investigative, and Social; entrepreneurial having to do with business ventures and related activities, Investigative has to do with everything that goes into investigating a topic, research, and conduct things like interviews, and Social involves interests in helping people more in person, as well as having a heavy emphasis in interacting with individuals. Entrepreneurial was where I scored the highest at 64, Investigative coming in at 62, and Social scoring at 44. The entrepreneurial sector did not come as a surprise to me as I have always been interested in such activities and the atmosphere surrounding the business world. I found it interesting that my Investigative score had been so close to my entrepreneurial score however, as I have never been one to be very excited at the thought of conducting extensive research on a topic. While I have had an interest in figuring out the cause and effects of certain real world events, I was still surprised by how close the two interest scores were. Social I felt was a bit of a surprise as I have never really done much volunteer work or any work in which it requires much personal interaction to help people. Overall I felt that the test was helpful in identifying what career interests are similar to my general interests. The questions however I felt could have been presented in a slightly more complex and in-depth way, rather than just a five-star rating system for general interest phrases.

I visited Starr Career Center and proposed my resume I had created with the help of the Hillel Club. A woman named Karen Klein within the club had constructed and reviewed my resume with me within about an hour or two. I had thought that it would need a lot of work, but she told me only a few minor changes and it would be solid. I put in my education, experience, skills, and community service. They weren’t in the correct format however which is what Karen helped me with. As soon as we had the format down and the correct dates and locations listed, we immediately went into review and evaluated that it was solid. About two to three weeks later I made my way to Starr Center and introduced myself with my resume. They went over it and word for word said “excellent resume! It honestly has the best formatting I have ever seen and requires no change!” I was thrilled to hear that because I did not feel like re-editing my resume. I had a nice chat with one of the women from the center actually because of one of the skills I listed. I said I spoke fluent Arabic and she related because she was Middle-Eastern and knew Arabic too. Overall it was a nice and simple experience to have my resume reviewed. I was taken in so quickly and was done within 5 minutes.

After coming home late Tuesday night, I was suddenly realized that my last blog post was due this Friday. Confused about which topic I didn’t fulfill, Kevin Zheng gave me a call. He told me that we were missing a career topic for our blog posts(both of us did the same topics) and to RSVP for the Starr Career Center event that was happening tomorrow. I went on the Baruch website and RSVP’d.

Coming into the workshop, I was eager to learn about resumes and the functions of getting a job in the real world. I hoped to have a few takeaways so that I could make my resume better, Adia T. was the staff member hosting the event. She gave us a first exercise of placing us in groups and handing out four resumes. We were to determine which one seemed more legit from the choices. Funny thing was, the resume the entire room chose had a small error on the header (name of Baruch College was spelled wrong) and Adia told us that this resume, despite it being full of intriguing info, was unacceptable.

She then went over slides on how we should be making our resumes. I found this very useful because I was getting tips on how I was going to update my resume for future employers to accept. Adia also mentioned an online survey that would determine a potential occupation based on our answers, but I guess I missed that part. It’s cool to have this resource here at Baruch because it would probably be hard to find someone willing to take time out of their day to explain such a topic like resumes. Adia was very patient and since it was a small room of students, it was easy to ask and have questions answered.  

For my last blog post, I️ attended a star career development center workshop. The workshop took place on Wednesday November 15, 2017 from 11am-12:15. First I️ had to RSVP online the night before. During the workshop, I️ learned about resume building. First, we talked about a focus 2 assessment. This assessment is free to Baruch students and can be found on the baruch website. This assesses your interest and skills and it gives you an occupation at the end. We moved on to reviewing four resumes. Some had errors and others had typos. I️ learned that just simplest typo will get your resume in the disregard pile from a hiring manager. I️ also learned to not put your GPA on your resume if it is under 3.0. The cliche resume building follows these guidelines: education, experience, skills, hobbies. I️ also learned that even though your previous job experience has nothing to do with the job you’re applying to, you should still put it down. This is because as freshmen, it is good to show that we have successfully been employed and we can articulate some skills we’ve learned from our previous jobs. I️ also learned to not put an objective section on your resume because most hiring managers don’t care much. While building your resume, it shouldn’t be too chunky. Things should be specific and straight to the point. It shouldn’t be in a paragraph form but in bullet points. At the end, I asked her if I can take a picture with her as proof that I attended, but she said no. She instead signed on the booklet she gave us.

 

I was excited to choose the MET, Metropolitan Museum of Art, as a place to visit to write my blog. Since I couldn’t go during the week, I went on a Saturday with my older sister. We walked around the outside for awhile because the weather was very nice and everyone was enjoying the outer view of the museum, which is famous for its stairs and aesthetic fountain. When we made it inside, we were able to enter for free and decided to visit the exhibit that features work from the Roman Era that dates back to 200 A.D. We saw many interesting sculptures, busts, and several different works of art that have been preserved for people to see upon their visit to the MET.

In the photo, that I had to take while I was there, I am standing next to a bronze portrait of a Roman Emperor, whose name was Caracella. Its origins are tied to Mesopotamia and dates back to 212 A.D. I was simply amazed at the way art was being used as a form of expression during that time period. It was like walking through some sort of time portal, understanding more and more how these people lived and what their idea of fine art really was.

After spending a good amount of time on this floor, we visited another exhibit where we saw oil paintings and cruised around the African Art wing where we saw really decorative masks and sculptures, some of which were carved intricately out of wood and made into odd-looking faces and figures. It was educational and thrilling to get a taste of historical art and definitely enjoyed my visit to the MET. The day would not have been as enjoyable and nice if it weren’t for the museum’s priceless works of art.

I had gone to The Met with Aliou, Kevin, Mike, as well as a friend of mine visiting from Buffalo State University, Pat. We took the 6 train from the school together after Sociology. To my surprise, I learned that you can pay any amount as an entry fee to the Met. Despite them having suggested, to pay $25 for entry, the option to pay a penny instead is a much more attractive offer. We had seen a statue of a head. The head was broken. I don’t know who broke it, I don’t know when it was broken, but the statue still looks pretty good where it wasn’t broken. We took a picture in front of this statue as it was impressively crafted through the sculpting work. Afterwards, we continued onward to see some more of the exhibits The MET had to offer. After our interest had been expended, we then retreated to the entrance and began to devise how we would be able to sell the tickets we were still in possession of. After determining it was overall a bad good idea, we debated as to where we would all go out to eat. My friend from Buffalo had a bus to catch back up to Buffalo shortly after our visit. So we decided to part with the rest of the group and proceeded to get onto the nearest uptown six train entrance to get to my dorm. We grabbed some Taco Bell very quickly, had a surprise visit, and then made our way to Port Authority with all of his luggage, which included 8 large fully packed mason jars of pasta sauce, 2 pounds of cheese, and a number of delicious Italian cold cuts. I was the one who had to carry these items in a bag. Needless to say after holding all that for over an hour, that hand was decimated.

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Let’s just say that clubs are probably one of the best parts about Baruch, and I’m barely one month in. This is especially true for the Finance and Economics Society, the first club I committed to from the start. One of the tasks given was to familiarize myself with STARR, which even before becoming a freshman I heard it worked as the “to-go platform for finding a job.” One of the requirements other than posting your academic info (graduation date, GPA) and your professional info i.e. your resume and cover letter was to take a few personality assessments which can help narrow down your career choices based on what you chose. These included assessments of tasks within a job that I’d like to do, my attitude towards work i.e. whether I’m a problem solver, more social, rational, systematic over adaptive etc. and typically if you answer these kinds of assessments over a larger period of time truthfully, consistent results are to be expected.
And they were. I was classified as a more conventional and investigative person, a person who likes to solve problems and would do well in business, accounting, hard sciences, administration and technology. I then proceeded to attend a workshop under FES which was named “Lifecycle of an Internship,” presented by the club’s president, Verina Hanien. What the presentation covered included all the stages of an internship at the big financial firms and how to make the most of them via networking, etiquette and feedback. I was familiar with what the processes of an internship were as I actually attended one this summer – right before I became a freshman – and had something to compare it to with similar results. I did realize I wasn’t proactive enough, but that was to be expected as I didn’t understand its importance until I stood out to gain more from active networking. That said, I do hope to incorporate these findings sooner or later. FES’ last career workshop which included Capco making a company appearance was more reflective, because the activity incorporated a case study which I felt comfortable doing by adding value to the discussion. Still, I have at least hundreds of days to prepare for my future career and even more to understand what I’d like to do in the long run.

For this week’s blog post, me, Kevin, Aliou, and Sergio decided to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art located around 85th Street. It was going to be a 20 minute ride so we decided to go out of our comfort zone and go to a museum. If I didn’t have a particular reason to go to a museum (aka this assignment) then I typically wouldn’t go. On the train ride, there was a lady with a Chihuahua puppy. The first thing that comes to me when I hear Chihuahua was an annoying dog that constantly barks. However, this puppy was rather obedient and well behaved. Once we got out of the train, I realized that we were around Central Park. I haven’t been in Central Park since the Summer and the weather was beautiful that I wish I could take a stroll the park.

We decided to go to the Met because we thought that admission was free to college students. We were wrong. When explaining to the lady at the kiosk, she explained that only Columbia Students get free admission. With a group talk, I decided to donate a dollar and Aliou donated a dime. Desperate times call for ridiculous donations when the sign clearly states “suggested donation”.

The exhibit we viewed was a statue from Ancient Greece. It was cool how the statue was one of the first known marble statues in a life-scale. I found it unique how the statue was missing a part of it’s face, showing that there may be multiple interpretations of who it could be. After walking around for a while, we decided to leave because frankly, we don’t like museums.

 

 

 

 

After English class on Thursday I went alone to the Museum of Modern Art. Luckily for me there was a 6 train that went there straight from Baruch.  This is a museum I am familiar with and visit a lot. They always add new artworks and exhibits throughout the year. I got to the museum about an hour before closing so I had a good amount of time to explore. Not much has changed since the last time I visited.

The museum has 6 floors filled with interesting pieces of art. The interior design of the building is really cool too. Most people think of art work as a painting or photograph but there is way more too it. For example I saw carvings and handmade work. There are different types of artwork too. The main ones I checked out where: Impressionism.Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism and Surrealism. My favorite out of the bunch has to be surrealism. Surrealism paints dreams. Surrealism is my favorite because the artist can express anything imaginable on the design. It looks futuristic as well.  I found it really cool to look at art in person compared to seeing it in a book. Last year I read a book analyzing different types of artwork throughout the world. They had many drawings/paintings from the book at the MOMA museum. I thought these pieces of art would look huge but it turned out most of them looked tiny. The Persistence of Memory is a painting by Salvador Dali that really stands out to me. It expressed imagination and the colors Dali used were extraordinary.

The painting I took a selfie with was actually painted by a man that works at the Museum of Modern Art. Unfortunately  I didn’t get an opportunity to meet with him. The experience I got from going to this musuem was really informational and showed me that I could learn a lot outside of school. I will be taking advantage of more free museums in the future.