Author: w.chen10

As we all know, resume, along with cover letter, is one of the most important things to be prepared before even contemplating about getting employed, whether it be volunteering, internships, or full-time employment.

To have the full package of a prepared interviewee, one of the characters I have to experience being before officially getting employed, regularly updating my resume is undoubtedly crucial.

So, when I found out that none of the session at Starr Career Development Center was of my interests, I decided to call up my mentor to review my almost ancient resume.

Without being reminded of the document’s existence, I was not aware of how outdated my career-related documents were, let alone of the urge to duly, constantly update them.

During our conversation, I put in my most recent experience in an internship, which I did before the end of my last semester in high school. Although the responsibilities of the position — administrative assistant tasks: organizing files and registering costs on spreadsheets — were largely similar to the one before, we still managed to find subtle differences between the two. Investor relations, the department I had the pleasure to work for in my most recent career-like experience, was finance-related. That means the speciality of it was more number-oriented. Corporate engagement, of which I had very similar experience with a year ago, had given me tasks that were mostly related to policies — city, state, and federal — and the implementation of them.

My mentor was kind enough to sacrifice his time to give me a timely session on such an essential item in my life, and also gave me a reminder that everything, literally everything, in this incessant lifestyle has to be updated.

When an email included a list of guests that would appear in the New Yorker Festival this year arrived at my inbox, I knew I was going.

Since the launch of the festival in 1999, the event has been attracting celebrity in all kinds of business — politics, art, entertainment alike. Plenty of familiar names: Larry David, Malcolm Gladwell, Marc Maron, and many more. New Yorker is one of the few magazines that has utilized live event, attracting major brands as sponsors, as main revenue source.

This year, many celerities were scheduled to make appearances: Preet Bharara, the Southern District Attorney of New York for 9 years until fired by President Trump; James Clapper Jr., the director of National Intelligence under President Obama from 2010-2017; Al Franken, the Juniro Senator from Minnesota, who was also in the original cast of Saturday Night Live.

The tickets were expectedly expensive, so I could only choose a select few events to attend. Starting with New Yorker staff writer Ariel Levy’s conversation with Seth Meyers, the host of Late Night with Seth Meyers on NBC. Having served as head writer of Saturday Night Live and the anchor of Weekend Update, a recurring segment since the beginning of the program in 1975, Meyers has proved himself to be an incredible entertainer on late-night television. During the conversation, Meyers explained the rationale as to why his program stood out comparing to other late-night talk shows.

Although being of a similar theme comparing to Stephen Colbert’s monologues and Samantha Bee’s Full Frontal, the segment “a Closer Look” dissects the daily news surrounding the political realm in a deeper fashion; “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell,” a segment that usually Meyers presents with Amber Ruffin, a female African American writer, and Jenny Hagel, a staff writer for Late Night who also happens to be homosexual, is among the one of the most innovative and comedic segments in late-night television. Diversity has always been a issue in show business, being the host of the show, bringing in writers of different ethnicities and races to make on-camera appearances just makes the show more refreshing than many other shows; Meyers’ program comprises many elements of political and social issues long before the presidential election last year, he expressed the need to change his tones when political figures within the administration, evidenced by his interview with Kellyanne Conway earlier this year. “It’s show business at the end of the day,” Meyers said. “You don’t want to distance yourself from the prominent figures in Washington. Although that interview (with Conway) definitely put off a lot of people in the administration.”

An hour later in the same theater, legendary comic Jerry Seinfeld had a conversation with New Yorker editor David Remnick. Different from many other comics nowadays, Seinfeld rarely curses in his performances on stage. He discussed the intensity he experienced when he and Larry David served as the executive producers of the show, including NBC frowned upon their innovative ideas, the intense writing involved in the process of creating each episodes, and the pressure to shoot a perfect finale.

Two of the events I attended in the festival were truly telling how difficult it could be in show business. Every person has different experience, but the same thing that everyone that made it in show business was that they wanted it hard enough.

There were a lot of general interest meetings taking place last Thursday, and I decided to take part of Hong Kong Culture Club. When I told my father about this interest, he said: “why would you join that club?”

“Well,” I replied, “why don’t I join and find out?”

Interesting, however, was the fact that there were some people of other ethnicities other than Chinese joined the club as well. Hmm, there must be something captivating about this club. Logically, I sat there and hoped that I could find the uniqueness of the club.

The meeting apparently was very well planned and, to everyone’s delight, Asian fusion was served. During the meeting, hosts, including the club president, treasury and other members, were incredibly charming. Although some of the aforementioned students who were not of any Asian ethnicities didn’t understand either Cantonese, the dialect used in Hong Kong and areas around it, and Mandarin, the official language of China, they gave their best shot and ramped up the environment inside the room.

In the meeting, with the charming blend of friendliness and warmth, club executives introduced to us about the normal activities and what to be expected if we were to join the club: discussions about culture and customs in Hong Kong, hangouts over the weekend or holiday, and even chances to taste the Asian dishes in New York.

Of course, conventionally, new members should get to know each other. Club executives planned an effective ice-breaker session for us: they divided us into different groups and let us play games to know each other. Unsurprisingly, with the help of the session, I managed to familiarize myself better with the Baruch culture and some of the people, I also found that there were many people who came from the very same city that I lived in for most of my life!