Freshman Seminar Fall 17 LC10

Small Talk: It’s a Big Deal

Last Week, I attended the workshop called Small Talk: It’s a Big Deal. I started getting interested in this particular workshop when I saw it as an option because sometimes making small talk is not one of my best features. At the workshop itself, the presenter began by introducing herself to everyone there individually. She introduced herself as Ellen Stein and shook each person’s hand. Then she talked about a few tips out of 50 to help with making small talk with people. Some of these tips include being the first to say hello, and to avoid certain topics with people that you are not very familiar with/ After, she asked if we would be comfortable having a conversation people we do not know in a room full of strangers. If we were comfortable with that, she wanted to know how much. At first I thought I would not be very comfortable at all talking to someone that I am unfamiliar with. However, towards the end of her presentation, I felt more confident in myself with making small talk with a stranger. During her presentation, we did exercises in small talk to help practice our skills. We asked other people in the room about their basic information to get to know them a little bit more. This was not very hard because the topics that we talked about were given to us. We were told what to say so we did not struggle in trying to think of something to talk about with the other person. So whenever we are talking someone new, there should be a few topics already in mind to discuss with them. Some of these topics include discussions about the weather  or good foods. So making small is not hard because there is fear of meeting someone new. Making small can be hard when there is nothing to talk about. But now, I’ll have a few topics already in mind to talk about with someone new.

The Museum at FIT

On Thursday, a couple of my friends and I visited the museum at FIT. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. We saw many new things that most of us probably had not seen before. I am not usually someone that is involved in fashion but what was displayed at the museum was certainly interesting. Some of the clothing that I saw there appeared to be very different and very innovative. One thing that really caught my eye was a strapless black dress with a floral pattern. I really liked it because it combined flowers, which is something pleasant, with the color black, which is something that seems closed off. Something that I was surprised to see there was a strapless dress with a zebra pattern. It is a very nice dress but the reason I was surprised to see it at the museum was because I have the same dress. It was nice to see something from my drawers be displayed in the animal print section of a museum.

The displays that I saw at the museum certainly gave me a reason to think about fashion a bit more. Like I aforementioned, the clothes displayed seemed to be something different and innovative. What they meant to me was that there were people in the world who think of these new ideas and then tell others about it. These ideas could be accepted or rejected by the public because they are so new and different. So that implies that there is no real criteria for what good fashion is. It is up to the public people to decide what is trendy or what stands out.

Overall, the trip I made to the museum was a great learning experience. I was able to to take some that I do not understand, like fashion, and be able to perceive it in my own way.

UCLA

Over the past week, I decided to explore Baruch by focusing on its clubs. I was aware that this college had over one hundred and fifty clubs. However, I was not completely familiar with what all of the options are. Around the school I had seen many posters about the UCLA club. I have also been approach by people who were already members of UCLA, encouraging me to join their club. After hearing what they had to say about the club, it made me genuinely interested to find out more about it. The UCLA members described that the club was about promoting culture, especially Chinese culture. So, I decided to go to the meeting set up by UCLA because I wanted to learn more about the club. At the meeting, there were speakers talking about the club’s upcoming events and what the club represented, and they had a presentation about it. What the members had to say made me even more interested in UCLA. I wrote my contact information for them so I can get involved in the future as well so I can find out what I can do to get involved. After the presentation was finished, we played a game involving everyone at the meeting. The people in the room were split in half into two teams to compete against each other. For each team, there would be a leader to represent the players and be the speaker for them. Whenever someone had an answer to a question players would shout the answers to the team leaders. The leaders would then tell the hosts their answer so that the answer could be verified as right or wrong. These games were a lot of fun because everyone could get their voices heard if they wanted they wanted to. They were points awarded to these games and a winner was declared at the end of each game. After playing games, the club took a group photo of everyone that attended the meeting.