Month: November 2017

On October 13th, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with my global history class. This was my first ever college trip and it was for extra credit. We were told if we attended the trip we would get an extra 5% on our midterm. I felt like it was necessary for me to go because I needed the extra points due to me doing poorly on the exam. I thought it was gonna be just an easy visit, take a few pictures and that was that but indeed we were all tricked. We had to do an essay for what we saw in the museum about something we didn’t learn in class. We saw cool things from ancient times like the mummies and the relief structures. Even though I felt like some of the art there was so pointless, for that time period it was pretty advanced.   I honestly hate going to museums because they’re so boring and you have to act a certain way and you cant touch anything. They’re just so dull. I got there a lot later than the whole class so I stayed a little longer after the tour to look at other areas in the museum. My professor just talked a lot and showed us around. She also showed us the adorable ancient hippo, William. We visited the Ancient Mesopotamia, Japan, and Egypt sites. As we were doing the essay which was due the following week, she tells us it cannot be based on Ancient Egypt which honestly aggravated me because we had to use something else from the museum which we really didn’t know much about. The whole essay was basically just me trying to make sense but I really didn’t make any sense. Also, I threw away my ticket because I thought her taking a picture with all of us was proof but I guess not. Luckily, however, I had a picture of my ticket.

Scrambling in the mist of the semester to get myself ready for all my midterm exams, I am stressed, lost, and clueless as to how to get that little bit of extra review in for the exam that next day. So on Wednesday, November 6 I decided to give the SACC a try. When I first arrived, I was worried that this tutor wasn’t going to be ready. I kept on thinking how can a student that was only born 2 years before me actually know this stuff? So I finally come across my tutor assigned to me for the hour, her name was Wenting. She seemed nice and quiet so I sat down not knowing what to expect from there. As soon as I took out my test questions, she immediately knew what to do. I couldn’t believe it, I could not get passed how someone only two years older than me knows this stuff, and even has the slightest brain interest to keep informed on this; but I guess when your school’s paying you $15 per hour, you’ll astronomy if they ask you to. My Professor I respect but teaches the content differently, so hearing Wenting explain what it is I needed to know was literally as clear as a whistle. In 5 minutes, I had a much stronger understanding of what I needed to do and even attempted to help my friend since I was able to so quickly attain what she meant. Once it got to the end of my hour, I literally wanted to cry because I felt like a kid that never wants to leave the birthday party. Being there was just so insightful that I wanted to keep asking questions, keep on learning since I felt I was in such good hands there. Wenting was wonderful and I wish I had only gone there sooner.

 

This past week I had a conference with my English professor, Nadim Essey. The meeting was held as a check in to let us know how we are doing in the class, before the drop deadline. I had come five minutes early for the meeting, to set a good impression. During the meeting, Professor Essey and I not only discussed my performance in this class as well as a Baruch student in general, but also my approach and concerns with the upcoming research paper.

Since I had handed in all of the assignments, and received excellent grades on all of them, Professor Essey said that I am doing very well in the class. He said that he noticed that I am participating more and adding insightful and effective contributions to the class discussion. Then he asked me about what he can do, to improve the class and the learning environment. I recommended that he be more of a helpful resource outside of the classroom. I said that he should be more easily accessible, like by responding with emails more frequently.

We then proceeded to discuss the upcoming research paper on a book we are currently reading in class. I had told him my topic, the symbolism of the American Dream in the novel and its role in Hollywood. He had approved of my topic and also asked me if I had any problems in conducting the research. I told him my procedure of researching, and he gave me some tips on how to effectively use the library’s resources.

Next, we discussed how I’m doing in my other classes. He mentioned that my classes said that they were having problems in philosophy and I mentioned me having some too. He then tells us that he has a background in philosophy and gave me a list of websites that describe different philosophers and explain their teachings. In conclusion, this meeting allowed me to realize that I am doing well in most of my classes. In addition, I learned some tips on research, and that I am able to reach out to professors if I ever need any help. This was a pleasant academic experience.

This is my second blog post and it’s on a social event. I heard this event from Kevin Chen in my community class and since we all just finished our midterm, so we decided to go the event together and relive some stress. The event started at 6pm I was super excited for this event since it’s like the first social event that I’m going to. When I got there, there was food,music and ballons, everyone was hyped for the event. After I settle down and got food, I sat down and started eating and enjoying the music. After we finished eating, we all got up and started dancing. During the event, I met some new friends and added each other on snapchat, we all chill and dance till 9pm and at the event, the music was fire and the food was good too. At the end of the event we actually took a group picture for our blog post. I enjoy the event and had a lot of fun, I feel like this is different than my high school event, so I guess there was a transition there from high school to college. After the event, I went to Starbucks with my new friend that I just met because we were all thirsty. After we got drinks from Starbucks, we went to play pool and ping-pong. We stay there for like an hour, we got hungry so we grab some pizza and went home. We had a hard time getting home too because most train don’t run at night, so I decided to take uber home, that uber was expensive because I live in deep Brooklyn but I was too tired to wait for the train. I knocked out right after I got home.