Freshman Seminar Fall 17 LC10

I went to the eSports club. It was kind of late to go, but I still went. At first, I did not know what to do at school. I did not know many people coming to the school since I came from a relatively small High School. However, when I finally came to Baruch College, I was surprised about how many students attend. I am also not interested in many things. But since I did play a lot of games prior to attending college, I did have a passion for it. I played quite a bit of games and probably more than the average person would. So when I first went to the club meeting, I did not expect many people to be there. Like honestly, who would join an eSports club, I thought to myself. Turns out, a fair bit of people did. I met some people who played the same games as me and they also played other popular games. At first, I didn’t talk to them about games. But, as I learned about other people in the club, we started talking more. Other people who were there started talking about video games that I’ve played as well. I learned that in college, there were other students who played video games like I did. We talked about aspects of the game and what we did when we played. Not only did we talk about the games that I’ve played, but also talked about other games that I have not played before. This helped me get through the first few weeks of college because I didn’t know many people. I also was not interested in many things. It gave me a place to express my interest. Also since coming to college, I’ve gotten a lot more homework compared to high school. The meeting allowed for me to calm down and talk about something enjoy rather than the classes that I take, which are not as interesting.

I was recommended to check out this club by my friend. I did not initially plan on joining this club, but then I was convinced by one of the club members. As I entered, I was astonished by the number of people there. IT was packed and I was feeling uncomfortable with the crowd. The room was packed: the chairs were filled and there were even numerous students standing by the walls and sitting on the floor. The club members gave me a brief explanation of the purpose of the club; that was when I decided that I wanted to be part of the UCLA so I signed up by giving my basic information along with my email.

The most tempting part of her explanation were the activities that the club was involved in. The following Tuesday, September 12, she notified me that there was going to be an activity where we would be making paper lanterns. Even though it sounds exciting, I doubt I will be able to have the time to participate due to my schedule. It is a shame that I would not be able to go, but there will always be next time for the activities.

Furthermore, she explained that the club was not as demanding as it sounded, and the events that they were planning seems to be quite interesting. For instance, she described that the UCLA will be holding a sports day like event where we would be participating along with other clubs. This seemed to be a fun and interactive activity in which I look forward to!

As I was conversing with the club members, they wore a bright welcoming smile and their tone was of excitement. It made me feel like they are having fun and that joining the club would also provide experiences in which I would enjoy.      

-Vicky Lin

Last Thursday I went to the first general interest meeting of the Finance and Economics Society. I first heard of FES during convocation day. I did not really get to learn much more about it because there were just so many people during the first day where all the clubs were gathered. I went in hoping to learn more about this group other than what I saw from convocation day. I’m planning to major in finance so I was thinking that this organization would help me learn the skills needed for a career in this major. The general interest meeting was very informative and gave me much more insight into what the group was about. It was cool to learn more about the people in FES and what kind of opportunities they offer. The meeting opened up with members giving a PowerPoint presentation that summarized what people in this organization did and the different programs they had for students. They offered programs that included a mentorship and analyst program. I am currently interested in the mentorship program as it could help me look into more specific career paths. FES also had other interesting events that were mentioned. One of them was a resume building workshop which is something that I would definitely want to check out. At the end of the presentation there was a team building exercise that involved making spaghetti towers using spaghetti, tape, and a marshmallow. Before we left the meeting, there was a group photo of all the freshmen who showed up. I hope to attend more of the FES events and meetings as the school year advances. So, to sign off on this blog post, I have included an image of me included in the group photo at the general interest meeting and a picture of me holding the spaghetti tower.

For the academic activity, we were supposed to participate in a community service project, attend a heritage month event, attend a health and wellness or athletic event, or join a student club or organization. I chose to do the latter and I was glad I made this choice. While walking to my next class I noticed some flyers hanging on the walls. Quickly I noticed they were for club meetings and were trying to catch out attentions. The one that really caught my eye was the United Chinese Language Society of Baruch College. I myself, am Chinese and felt like this would be a perfect way to make some new friends who had similar beliefs and felt like we could bond much better. Upon first entering the club meeting in a classroom, it was packed with people. I honestly don’t like a huge group of people together all at once because not only is it crowded, it is hard to make new friends in there. I quickly took a seat and thought to myself this was possibly one of the worse decisions I could have ever made this year. But I was clearly in the wrong. The advisors of the group proved me otherwise as they were friendly and played a few games with the whole group as an icebreaker and we were all able to get along and have fun with each other. Some even came up to me to have a friendly chat with! We played many games such as Google feud, Zoooomed in, and more. There must have been over 100 people in the club but it was definitely worth the time. Not only that there was free food served for us! I believe that having joined this club I will be able to strengthen my social skills and be able to apply this in the outside world and be able to talk to others more freely!

On Monday 9/11/17 I gathered up enough courage to go to the athletics department to ask about the tennis team. All i wanted to do was gain some information but the second I said “tennis”, the sports adviser John Nevins immediately started telling me, the coaches contacts. I’ve been playing since the age of 4 through private lessons and because my high school never had a tennis team, I decided that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I emailed the coach a few hours later and immediately got a response saying to call him. I had a very nerve wrecking phone conversation, because he was assuming that I had been competing my whole life since I had been playing for so long (I haven’t), and he was making it sound as if the whole team were some pro-athletes. He interviewed me, asking questions about my skills and finally told me to go get all the paper work filled out so that he could see how I play and join the team. This day has been overwhelming but this chance to play is exactly what I needed. I suddenly feel like there’s more to college than just studies.

Aside from tennis, art has been a major part of my life since I was 3. These past few days I took my friends with me to the Met, and several art galleries such as Gagosian gallery, David Zwirner, Fridman gallery, etc. We were all in the art program in high school, but we’ve never branched out to actually walk around and look at art, until our senior year. I was personally inspired to paint more after visiting these exhibitions, that gave me a new appreciation for art. When I was little even though I loved drawing/painting, I always thought museums were boring because they had so much historical items that made no sense to me, and the colors were dull or black and white. However, I learned that it simply depends what museums you go to and what parts you visit. Art comes in different forms and something unique about it, is that everyone can find something they like. One of the galleries I went to had a pumpkin bigger than me, and a circular statue that you could climb into. I recommend everyone to visit places that they least expect to like, because you never know that might turn out to be your new favorite destination.

These last two paintings are mine and have been inspired by the galleries I visited.

I first saw the UCLA Club on convocation day and I was a bit confused because I was like why are they promoting a school in California here at Baruch. Later that day I was handed a flyer for that same club and I found out UCLA stood for “United Chinese Language Association”. The flyer told me that the first General Interest Meeting was on the next Thursday so I was like aii cool. I didn’t intend on joining at first because I wanted to check out the other clubs to see if anything appealed to me and sadly, nothing else did. I asked a few friends if they wanted to come with me to the first GIM and they agreed. At first I didn’t expect much because honestly I went for the food but after finding out what the club was about, I became more interested. The executive board introduced themselves and went through the PowerPoint explaining what they do in the club and what they strive to accomplish as a team. What really sealed the deal for me was when we played two ice breaker games. We played a weird game where 3 people asked each other questions back and forth based on the scenario and whoever couldn’t come up with any more questions was disqualified (a bit confusing, I know).  The second game was Pictionary and it’s basically when someone draws a picture and their team members have to guess what it is.

Peep me in the white shirt drawing something because nobody wanted to volunteer and my friends forced me to go up.

Carrying on, that day was honestly my favorite day of the week because not going to lie, my first week at Baruch was the best (I want to blame the weather). After meeting new people at the club and laughing a lot, I saw what it’s like to  have fun in college and that was when I realized hey, college isn’t so bad. I finally understand why many people encourage you to join clubs because it’s the only way you’ll have fun and be sane. Not to mention you get to meet awesome, new people. In the end, I did not get food but I was able to join an amazing club and I can’t wait to go to future events to embrace and learn about Chinese culture.