Freshman Seminar Fall 17 LC09

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.

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On Friday, October 13th, 2017, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for my history class. My history teacher, Anna Boozer, told us to meet in the lobby by three fifteen. I took the four train from Bowling Green in Manhattan to get there. However, when I first got on the subway, I accidentally took the four going the other way, the one that was Brooklyn bound. I didn’t even realize it until I heard “the next stop is Borough Hall” over the loud speaker. I thought to myself “isn’t Borough Hall in Brooklyn?” and quickly got off there. When I got off, I had to look for the Manhattan/Bronx bound train. Finally, after the subway ride, I arrived at the Met. Anyways, when most of us got there, my teacher was still giving a tour to a different group before ours. Those of us that were there just stood around in the lobby waiting for our teacher to finish that tour. When her tour was over, she met up with us in the lobby. She gave us a makeshift attendance sheet to sign. After more people showed up, we started our class tour. We visited the ancient Egypt exhibit, and it was pretty interesting. We saw different primary sources and artifacts that included statues, tombs, and other pieces of construction with hieroglyphics on them. Our teacher led us through many rooms, explaining what different things were along the way. After seeing all the artifacts from various pharaohs, she led us into a huge room that had a big tomb in the center and had flowing water on one side. She told us that you can actually rent that room out but it would be very expensive. Finally, she said that we could stay and see other exhibits or we could just leave.

On Friday the 13th, 2017 we had to take a visit to the museum in order to write an essay based on one of the pieces we chose in the exhibition. At first I had two appointments that day but had to cancel one just to make it and even then I was still in a rush since I didn’t have time and I was late. I had to take the A train to 125th st and then take the B or the D to 86th st and then from then on take the m86-sbs crosstown in order to get to the museum without doing too much walking.

When I got there it wasn’t too hard to find the group because they were right next to one of the big statutes near the entrance. We waited a bit for other people to show up and then we put on our stickers and went in through the Egypt exhibit. I’ve been to the MET many times and have already seen many of the pieces we were seeing but it was like I was viewing it from a different lens since I had some context to many of the things we were looking at and it was helpful that our professor was going into detail about all the different pieces we were seeing.

After we finished looking at the Egypt exhibit, some of us went to the Mesopotamian and the Chinese exhibits to get pictures and to pick other pieces to write about. It was a breeze and we took a lot of pictures before we decided to leave and get something to eat. We decided on pizza but for reasons I have forgotten about, we ended up getting Shake Shack and arguing about mangos. It was a pretty chill day and I’m not that mad about going to the MET instead of doing something else.

On Monday I had a Writer’s Conference with my English Professor, Nadim Essey. In the meeting, my professor and I discussed two things, how I am doing in his class and what am I writing about for My Research Paper that is due.

Professor Essey said that work wise I am doing well in the class. I have submitted all of my assignments, and have been receiving above average grades on most of them. He said the only area I need to improve on is participating more during class.

Then we went on to talk about my Research Paper that is due in the upcoming weeks. My professor assigned my class a Research Paper on a novel we read called The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West. He wanted me to come into the meeting with a topic to talk about. I decided that I am going to write about how past experiences effected the main character’s life in the future. He approved of my topic and then went on to offer ideas on how to approach it. He said I would need to find some psychological evidence to support my claim. In addition, he gave me certain in keywords that I could search up in databases to find some more details for my paper. We also went on to talk about certain scenes in the novel in which I could add to my paper.

After we finished talking about my paper, he handed me a paper that helps me keep up with my grade this semester. It showed how much each assignment is worth and all I have to do is put in what I got on each assignment and do the math. As the meeting concluded I learned I have been doing better than I expected in English class and some advice about my Research Paper.

 

I am a biology major in Baruch and I am planning on taking two science classes next semester. Although taking Biology and Chemistry together will be a challenge, I feel like I can handle it. The Biology class I will be taking has lab twice a week while chemistry has lab once a week. I have taken two science classes before in high school at once, so I think I can most likely handle the challenge.

          As a science major, I had to have a consult meeting with Mr. Wahlert who is the science department chair. The science department is on 17 Lex and is located on the sixth floor.  All students need to pre-register in the department office for the science courses in the semester prior to taking them. I had to go to the office for a total of three times. The first time I went to get the specialised major form and the second time I went to have the meeting with the department chair.

The meeting lasted for about twenty minutes. I told Mr. Wahlert that I am a biology major and he informed me about the prerequisites for the major. He also helped me fill on the sheet for the science classes I will be taking in the next few semesters. The sheet was about the fact that I am making a commitment to take these science courses as a part of my major. With his help, I made a tentative list about the elective courses I will be taking for my major and I learned what prerequisites i need to take in order to take a specific class.

After the meeting I was over, I was given a new copy of the intended science classes sheet that I was suppose to re-do. The consultation was very helpful as I became better informed on how I should proceed in the decision of choosing my classes for the upcoming semesters.

I took a picture of the worksheets he gave me because I thought it would just be weird to take a picture with him. Sorry about that. I can also show a confirmation email as proof that I went.

For my second blog post (academic) I will be talking about my time at the SACC. I went to the SACC twice on the 18th of October. I went to the SACC for help in MTH 2003. I actually consider myself an above average student in the class but there was one question on my math lab that I couldn’t figure out. I went through multiple examples but still couldn’t figure it out. That’s when I decided I’m going to need some extra help on the question.
My first session at the SACC was from 11-12 right before my English class. I usually don’t get to school before 12:20 on Wednesdays so I was tired at the session. On top of that I was asleep during the train so my tiredness carried on to the session. I showed my instructor the question but she could not use the same numbers as MML (mymathlab) which I think is dumb if it’s only for one question. After twenty minutes of her trying to explain in different ways and me still not giving she decided it was best that we move on to the next question. For the rest of the session I finished the homework (2.2) that I could have easily finished without her. After the session and right before my English class i signed up for another session 5 minutes after my  math class ended because I knew I had to answer that one question or it was going to bother me until I did.

At my second session I had an instructor who taught better than my actual teacher. He explained the question so organized in his whiteboard that i just followed the same steps in my question. I got the question right after probably like twenty previous attempts my first time in this session. It may have been that I wasn’t as tired in this session than I was in my first but this instructor’s explanation was definitely more clear to me. For the rest of the session I started my next homework (2.3) and asked him any questions that I had. My experience at the SACC was overall a good time where I got a lot of work done. The most important thing I learned for the future is to pick the right instructor.