student life – 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.

Absolute Adrenaline Club

Thursday October 12^th I joined a club after going to the General Meeting. The club I visited is called Absolute Adrenaline. This club seems really cool and I think I would really enjoy it. The club size isn’t very big but that means that there is more of a bond or friendship between the members. Some of my friends are joining the club too which makes it even better. The club is designed to give students something fun or exciting to do or look forward to between all the stresses of school. At the club’s general meeting, the representatives discussed some of the many activities they will be having this year. The activities introduced were snowboarding, skiing, paintball,laser tag, rock climbing, and hiking. All of these activities sound really fun and exciting. During the club’s general meeting, we played a lot of icebreakers to get to know each other. One of the activities we were instructed to perform was to get into groups of four and come up with creative ideas on trips we could all go on. We each were giving a budget of twenty-five dollars per person. This was difficult at first because we did not know of many places or activities that only cost twenty-five dollars, but then we found coupons and group discounts online that made our options bigger. One activity everyone seemed to agree on was Bounce, a place full activities done on trampolines. Overall the club’s general meeting was a lot of fun and I am happy to have joined. To thank everyone for coming to thee club they even made a “make your own sundae” table. I thought that was a creative idea because usually clubs just go out a buy sandwiches but I loved their ice cream idea. I look forward to the next meeting and I cant wait to go on one of their many exciting activities!

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.

UCLA Meet

My first impression of UCLA, the United Chinese Language Association, is that it is a very large community. All the club members are very friendly, and a lot of people seem to know each other there. UCLA is a club that is designated to Chinese culture and heritage, but everyone is welcome to join and participate in its events. Out of curiosity, I decided to go to its second meet on Thursday, September 7th. When I arrived to the meet, I was pretty surprised to see how many people there were. The room was packed, and all the seats were filled, so many people were sitting on the floor. Although I was kind of late, everyone was very welcoming. When I joined them, they were in the middle of a Google Feud session, which was pretty hilarious. A lot of people were participating, much to my surprise, and I found myself wanting to take part in the game as well. Everyone was yelling a plethora of silly answers, and it was very amusing. After playing Google Feud, we played Zoom, a game where we had to guess what the very zoomed in picture is. This game was harder than I thought, although other people had no problems with it. There was one person who got most of the answers correct. Throughout the meet, many students were laughing, shouting out answers, and enjoying themselves. Eventually, the games had to come to an end, but the meet was not over yet. There were refreshments, which were Chinese food and drinks. As we all ate, we socialized and talked to people both familiar and new. UCLA seems to be a very inviting group, and I am considering in joining it. Although I don’t particularly like large groups, UCLA is very friendly, and I feel quite comfortable to be in a group like theirs.

UCLA Club Meeting

Last Thursday (September 7^th, 2017), I attended the UCLA (United Chinese Language Association) general interest meeting. I was informed of this club during Convocation Day at Baruch. There was a club fair and a lot of clubs were trying to recruit people to join. There were tables set up for clubs and people going around with club flyers to pass out. As I was riding up the escalator, some UCLA club members snagged the opportunity to inform me about their club. They had handed me a colorful flyer and proceeded to talk about their club. I don’t quite remember what details they said, but I do remember that they mentioned how there was going to be free food at the first meeting.

At the meeting I attended on Thursday, the room was very crowded. Lots of people had showed up and there were not enough chairs for everybody. The meeting started out with information about the club and some of the events. Then, there were some icebreaker games. One game that we played was called Google Feud, which was based off of the rules of Family Feud. Another game that we played involved us guessing what the zoomed in picture was. A picture would be zoomed in and we would have to try to guess what the picture was of. These games were pretty fun and enjoyable! Afterwards, people lined up for the free Chinese food.

During the meeting, I signed up for the club by putting in my name and email address into an excel spreadsheet. The club sends out newsletters to the email we provided so by reading the newsletters, I can be informed of any future events and attend some of them. One event that is coming up is the Lantern Making Workshop. In this workshop, UCLA will demonstrate how to make our own paper lanterns, which seems pretty fun!

My UCLA Meeting Experience

On September 7th, I took part in the UCLA GIM #2 (United Chinese Language Association General Interest Meeting) and I plan to join the club. Since there were so many people in the room, there wasn’t enough seats for everyone. I was one of the people that sat on the floor. The meeting started with the purpose of the club, which was the information section of the meeting and then we moved on to the games or “ice breakers”.

The games were very enjoyable. We played Google Feud in which it was the left group versus the right group. I was part of the group on the right. Google Feud was difficult and some of the answers were surprising (well not surprising, but rather made me question popular searches) because some of the answers were very idiotic or would make you say: “What? Why?”. One round was that my group had to solve “trump _” and the answer to the blank were mainly about President Trump, which was a bit funny because everyone was trying to name the answers, such as “trump son”, “trump wife”, or “trump fake news”. A few people complained in a lighthearted manner that it wasn’t fair that we got an easy one, but they did get “powdered _” as one of their rounds. Another game we played was Zoom and in this game an image is zoomed to a portion and you must guess what the actual image is. There were Timberland boots, men’s boxers, a Poland Spring Bottle, and other images.

I plan to get involved by going to the meetings and participating in some of the events, like the Chinese New Year celebration. We took a group photo, which is on their Facebook; and free food was given, which a lot of people lined up for.

UCLA

I went the to first general interest meeting for the club, UCLA, which stands for United Chinese Language Association. While I was waiting for the meeting to start, I was greeted by one of the VP of the club. She was very friendly which made me feel welcomed. The moment I stepped inside the room, I was shocked by the number of people that came to the meeting. The room was packed and there weren’t enough chairs for everyone. More than half of the people have to either sit on the floor or stand. During the meeting, I got the opportunity to learn more about UCLA and the interactive games played were very interesting and fun. We played three games in total. The first game we played we can only answer a question with a question. If we make a statement then we lose. In the second game, it’s basically draw something. We were divided into two groups, one person from each group go up to the board and draw. Whichever group guessed it first is the winner. The last game involved two players, one with headphone on with music blasting and the other player have to say the phrase on the card. The player with the headphone on have to guess what the phrase is. After the introduction and games, food were offered to us. But the line for food was so long, so I didn’t wait on line and left.

The environment is chill and friendly, therefore, I believe this will be a great opportunity for me to meet more people and make new friends. I will definitely go to the following events host by UCLA. There will be a Lantern Making Workshop on Tuesday. I really want to go and learn how to make a lantern, unfortunately, I have class so I will not be able to make it to this event.

This is the only picture that shows my face so…yeah!

UCLA – Sabrina’s GIM #2

On Thursday, September 7, 2017, I attended a club at Baruch, called UCLA, which stands for United Chinese Language Association. It may seem as though this group is only designated for the people who speech a Chinese language, which may be mostly true, but there were a couple people who didn’t; still, they joined the club on that day because the club welcomes diversity for people who are dedicated to learn more of the Chinese language. There was so many people in club that we filled the room with every chair and had people standing and sitting on the floor, cramming the doorway. Despite the fact that it was so crowded, we still had lots of fun during the club hour because we played group games that helped us get more involved and friendly with each other. The first game we played was called ‘Google Feud’ which was just like ‘Family Feud’ but based on Google searches. The large group was divided into 2 teams and we had to fill in the blank for top google searches. For example, the category of choice was called ‘names’ and the beginning of the blank read ‘Donald…’ so the first answer was obviously ‘trump’ and that result was the number one search on google, so the team’s score increased by 10000 points for guessing the number one search. The second game that we played as a group is called the ‘Zoom In Game’ in which we had to guess what the zoomed in full picture was. For example, in the zoomed in picture, there was a dark green bushy looking kind of picture with a shade of light blue in the top right hand corner. At first, the teams thought that the full picture was supposed to be of a tree, but in the end, the other team guessed that it was a Poland Spring bottle, and they were correct. Then we took a group picture with everyone in the corner and there was so many people that a lot of people weren’t seen in the picture at all. Then, we had free Chinese food at the end.