Month: September 2017

Student Life: FES, Professional Development and You

Posted on by m.roitburd

Time is of the essence and finding out what to do requires planning ahead. I decided to attend clubs to enrich my life and develop my personality. Luckily, Baruch has clubs for everyone and I found myself comfortable in choosing one at my discretion, even though you can’t just attend them all. Thus, I chose to make a profound move and affiliate myself with a more professional/academic club because the progress builds up rapidly, rewarding proactivity.
High school allowed me to get a taste of what accounting felt like through the Virtual Enterprise program. In fact, I was the CFO of a virtual company and while I enjoyed my job there was a bigger focus on the administrative and external affairs more so than my accounting responsibility. So, I decided to pursue finances yet study accounting, as the two aren’t too nonexclusive.
Today was the GIM day for many clubs, and Finance & Economics Society (FES) felt like a good choice. Thus, I went straight to 11-150 and made myself known, recognizing a few familiar faces. Before attending, I was acquainted with a senior (former co-worker) who allowed me to connect with the board of the club far easier; I integrated rather quickly.
The session was informative and made me realize that the club is not just extra-curricular, but quintessential for a possible career while in college. Working on Financial Analysis or Investment Banking (IB) are two finance paths that I have never been exposed previously, but am highly interested in!
Highlights include the mentorship program which allows me to be paired with seniors and work on assignments that can sharpen my hard skills. Resume, cover letter and mock interviews are features that can sharpen my soft skills, and make me well rounded.
Considering that I require a better balance in adjusting to the professional world, FES is likely the best path towards achieving my final FTO goal in college.
Ultimately, it all complements my “time is limited” mentality because the other clubs I’m considering – Absolute Adrenaline and/or Archery Club – happen on weekends, which makes sure that no conflicts happen. I can’t wait to make most use of my opportunity and end up giving back to those that helped me rise.

First GIM for the FES club.
FES is an important part of Student Life.

Alpha Kappa PSI GIM

Posted on by c.siew

As a freshman in a new school with a small handful of friends, I’m on a search to find a home in this massive school. Having been on a team in high school, I found that finding a family requires an individual to actively go out of their comfort zone to find one. Today, I took my first step in doing that by attending a general interest meeting for the business fraternity, Alpha Kappa PSI. I found out about this fraternity through my boyfriend’s cousins whom both are brothers in the frat.

Besides listening to a presentation detailing the background of the fraternity, we also made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a homeless shelter nearby. The event gave me an opportunity to meet the brothers and other students who are also trying to rush. What really sparked my want to rush was the fact that every brother I talked to today was genuinely open and down to earth. They seemed like a group of people I would want to be around. Another apparent notion was that every brother seems to have benefited from being apart of this fraternity.  One in particular, Sarah, whom I had the pleasure to have a 30 minute conversation with, informed Sethy and I about how she found her pleasure through the experiences that she was exposed to because of the connections she made since she became a brother. The conversation covered the topics of majors and minors, the importance of self awareness, and a lot of small talk in between. Through this conversation alone, it gave me an insight on what to expect in Baruch.

Although a small selective number of people will actually get the opportunity to become a brother, I will keep my fingers cross for that slim chance. Regardless of what happens, today’s experience has ignited the will for me to make Baruch my new home.

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Beta Alpha PSI General Interest Meeting

Posted on by m.yuan

Before I got to Baruch, my two older brothers encouraged me to join clubs and get used to the campus I would be attending for the next four years. What I didn’t realize was the amount of clubs/organizations Baruch had to offer. With my two hour and 30 minute break between classes every Tuesday and Thursday, I felt the need to venture out and find a club/organization that interested me.

As I was going down the escalator and heading home, I was approached by Darius, one of the leaders of the fraternity Beta Alpha PSI. When I heard the word fraternity, my thoughts immediately thought about the horrific article I read about the tragic death of a Baruch freshman at a fraternity and about the hazing process I would have to go through to be accepted. Darius quickly turned down my ideology and explained how Beta Alpha PSI was a business fraternity that helped members with their interview skills, reviewed resumes, and build connections that would be useful for post-college life.

I decided to go to the Second General Meeting that was held today. I was amazed by the crowd for this meeting as they ran out of seats (and pizza) in the room. I learned how Beta Alpha PSI has been around since 1951 and that there were 300 chapters and 300,000 members worldwide. These numbers made me believe that this frat was pretty legit. The members of this fraternity explained how they found Beta Alpha PSI and it helped them with finding jobs at pretty legit firms (JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs to name a few). The three values the members held dearly were Professionalism, Brotherhood, and Service. I was impressed to know that all the members had each others back and didn’t forget where they came from by doing community service. I was somewhat eager to join, but I was turned off by the fact that I needed a 90+ GPA from high school (since I was a freshman and I was about to achieve an 89) and also I felt that I couldn’t make time for this fraternity because the Baruch Swim Season is about to start and I won’t have time to balance both the fraternity and the life of a student athlete.

Joining ToastMasters!

Posted on by r.wadolowski

Rafal Wadolowski

Today a couple a of friends and I joined ToastMasters. In this club people come in to practice their public speaking not only to get over their fear of public speaking but to also excel in the art of speaking off the cuff. I wanted to join this club for a variety of reasons, the first one being that archery club is on Saturdays, so thats a no from me. But in addition to that, I want to get used to standing and talking to a large crowd of people before I have to do it for an important presentation or social setting.

Some of my old experiences that could have been improved had I been attending this club for a while was when I was a finalist in my high school story telling competition. I was telling a story to a group of 50-60 students, from memory. I remember being really excited , which may have led me to speed through parts of my story, also my legs were pretty wobbly just because of the amount of eyes staring at me.

What I am looking forward to is being around dozen of other students that have the same goal in mind as me, also not only will mr wobbly legs eventually go away after time, but the other club members will offer me constructive criticism and advice on how I could keep the audience engaged all while appearing cool and collected.

And lastly, I got to talk with the president of toastmasters, who’s name is mike, and just like me he is Polish. His family and my family both immigrated to America, which is pretty neat.

And lastly(real this time), I also wanted to join other clubs such as Polish Culture club and adrenalin club, depending on which days the clubs meet up.

(Every time I tried to upload the picture it said error, but its the same photo as the one on Daniel.Maslowski’s blog.)

Joining Accounting Society

Posted on by k.zheng3

My name is Kevin Zheng. Today, Thursday 9/07/16, I stopped by the accounting society club during club hours. They were located in room 3-239. I chose this club specifically because my intended major is accounting and wanted to get a head start on my career and also to see what they had to offer. I spoke to Gabby Capello. She is a senior in undergraduate Baruch college and she serves as the vice president of the club. I didn’t have a chance to talk to the other club members. Nevertheless, there was a general interest meeting the same day at 12:50 in room 5-165. During the meeting, I learned several things about the club. First of all, they have free food. On a more serious note, the club mainly hosts events with different accounting firms. They invite these accounting firms to come and give a presentation to the students about accounting in general. They offer advice and explain different accounting career paths to the students that attend. They also hosts several workshops such as personal workshops and accounting major workshops. During personal workshops, they help you as a person. An example would be the interview process. This club helps you build up your resume and guide you through the interview process as many of us will need for the future. This really drew my interest within the club because as of right now my resume isn’t good at all and it wouldn’t hurt for extra tips on how to go about an interview. They guide you through how to go about an interview such as attire and presenting yourself to an employer. Last but not least, they also offer volunteer workshops. All these workshops take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays during club hours except for volunteer that takes place throughout the city. The club ended around 2:20 and that concludes this blog.  This image requires alt text, but the alt text is currently blank. Either add alt text or mark the image as decorative.

Blogs at Baruch

Posted on by e.jorgensen

Hello Class!

Here are the blogging guidelines copied straight from our syllabus:

Enrichment Workshops

First-Year Seminar enrichment activities provide students with the opportunity to learn more about the resources and opportunities available at Baruch College. Offered throughout the semester, these activities will help complement the sessions that students will cover in their First-Year Seminar classes. The enrichment opportunities will help to ease their transition into college life by strengthening connections with fellow peers, faculty, and staff.

The enrichment opportunities offered will include a wide range of activities and events related to the following categories: academic, career, and student life. You will be required to attend or complete a total of three (3) enrichment opportunities, selecting one from each category, and write a short reflective piece on your class’s Blogs@Baruch page. Below are some examples of enrichment workshops that you can attend.

ACADEMIC

CAREER

STUDENT LIFE

Attend Major and Minors Fair

Attend a Starr Career Development Center workshop

Join a student club or organization

Attend a workshop with SAAC Tutoring Center

Take the Focus-2 Assessment and attend a workshop or schedule a Career Counselor appointment to review.

Attend a health and wellness or athletic event

Attend an exhibition offered at a NYC museum

(free with student ID)

Attend a Field Center for Entrepreneurship workshop

Participate in a community service project

Attend a Writing Center workshop

Attend the Career and Internship Fair

(attend a Career Prep workshop first!)

Attend a Heritage Month event

The class peer mentor will highlight additional information regarding dates, times, locations and descriptions for the scheduled activities when classes begin. If you have an event you would like to use as an enrichment workshop, receive approval from your instructor or peer mentor in advance of attending.

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Blogging in First-Year Seminar

Having attended your enrichment workshops, Blogs@Baruch will allow you to reflect on your experience. Blogs@Baruch is an online publishing and academic networking platform for the Baruch College community overseen by Baruch’s Center for Teaching and Learning. All incoming students will contribute to collaborative weblogs in order to build community inside and outside of the classroom, extend the opportunity for dialogue among seminar participants, and to gain an introduction to the implications of doing academic work on the Internet. On the first day of class, First-Year Seminar Peer Mentors will review instructions on how to use Blogs@Baruch, how to develop and maintain a profile page on the system, and will also guide you through the three blog posts that will be required of all First-Year Seminar students. You will also receive instruction on best practices for developing a digital identity, and guidance on where to find support for your work with educational technology on campus.

Embed your image in a blog post and then write a post of 300 words that explains how and why the event or activity assisted you during your first semester at Baruch. Before publishing your post, tag the post as “Academic”, “Career” or “Student Life” in the right sidebar under ‘Tags. Be sure to check your post for spelling, grammar, and capitalization before publishing!

Blog Assignments

ACADEMIC
Select an event or activity from the Academic Workshop section. Post a photo of yourself at the event or

doing the activity. Embed your image in a blog post and then write a post of 300 words that explains how and why the event or activity assisted you during your first semester at Baruch.

CAREER
Select an event or activity from the Career Workshop section. Following the event or activity have the

presenter sign the signature section of your handbook. Write a post of 300 words that explains how the workshop helped you to explore your career goals and what additional resources will you use at Baruch College to help accomplish your career goals.

To attend a career workshop please do the following:

  1. Log into STARR Search, the SCDC’s electronic career management program, and create your personal profile at http://baruch-csm.symplicity.com/students.
  2. RSVP for the workshop you wish to attend.

Please note that pictures are not allowed to be taken at the career workshops. Please have the presenter of the workshop sign in the signature section below to verify your participation.

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STUDENT LIFE
Select an event or activity from the Student Life Enrichment Workshop section. Students must register for myBaruch and create a profile. Use myBaruch to look up clubs and events. Post a photo of yourself at the event or of yourself doing the activity. Embed your image in a blog post and then write a post of 300 words that reflect on your impressions of the event or activity and how you plan to get involved.

DUE DATES:

  •   Post One: Due before Values and Academic Integrity Session
  •   Post Two: Due before the Mid-Semester Check In Session
  •   Post Three: Due before Career Planning Session

Resizing Images for Blogs@Baruch

Before uploading a picture to your Blogs@Baruch site, you need to make sure that the image is sized appropriately. Images taken directly from cameras and smart phones are often too large in the raw (unedited) format, so you will need to resize the image.

First, you will need to upload the image to a computer (Mac or PC). You can do this by connecting your camera or phone via USB, or by emailing the image to yourself and saving it on the computer you plan to use.

Once you have your image saved on the computer, you can open the image and change the size. Images should be 800 pixels wide (or less) before they are uploaded to a Blogs@Baruch site. Directions for how to open and resize an image are below.

On a PC, resize a picture using the ‘Paint’ program.

  1. Open Paint: Click the Start button > All Programs > Accessories > Paint.
  2. Click the Paint button, click Open, and select the picture you want to resize.
  3. On the Home tab, in the Image group, click Resize.
  4. In the Resize and Skew dialog box, make sure the Maintain aspect ratio check box is selected so that resized picture will have the same aspect ratio as the original picture.
  5. To resize the picture so it’s a specific size, click Pixels, and then enter a new width (800) in the Horizontal box. Click OK. Now your picture is resized.
  6. Click the Paint button, point to Save as, and then click the picture file type for the resized image.
  7. Type a new file name in the File name box, and then click Save. Make sure you Save it somewhere that you can access later (ex: a USB drive or a personal folder).

On a Mac, resize an image using the ‘Preview’ program.

  •   Click on the saved image and it will open in Preview.
  •   From the top menu, choose Tools > Adjust Size.
  •   Choose a common size from the “Fit into” menu or, enter new values for width and height.
    •   You can select 800 x 600 from the “Fit into” menu.
    •   To ensure that the image keeps its original proportions, select “Scale proportionally.” If you change either the width or height, the other value changes to maintain the proportions. If you choose a size from the “Fit into” pop-up menu, the image’s width or height may be smaller than the chosen size to maintain the proportions.
    •   To make the image’s dimensions smaller without losing any detail, deselect “Resample image” before changing the width or height.

      Disclaimer: The Office of Student Life may use the photograph/video in publications or other media material published, including but not limited to: brochures, invitations, books, newspapers, magazines, television, websites, etc.