Month: September 2017

Hey everyone!

Last week Thursday, September 7, I attended the Hillel at Baruch club. Hillel at Baruch is a club known to engage every Jewish university student, from those with strong Jewish backgrounds to those with none at all. As a Jewish student myself, it felt satisfying knowing that there are people in the school who follow the same religion as me, and will go as far as going to clubs in order to keep these practices. The club starts with the directors giving out food, and then having the students listen to a guess speaker. Last Thursday, we were lucky to have a cancer survivor as a guess speaker. Noah Benter is an Israeli singer who was diagnosed with cancer at age 30, yet came back and carried on with her career in singing. She talked to us about her experience with having cancer, how we should feel if dealing with cancer, and how to help support someone with cancer. It wrapped up with her getting a standing ovation from the crowd, as well as, her showing us some of her hit singles.

In the future, I wish to attend this club on a daily basis. Not only does it come with great food and a fascinating speaker, but a similar crowd that will help me keep my roots.

FRO,

Hi my name is Freskim Noka, and my first exploration of Baruch was to the Writing Center which was located on the 8th floor(Room 185), where I believe I will be spending a majority of my time, being that I am not the greatest writer… Throughout my visit to the writing center, I met the student assistant, whom if I remember clearly was named Sandy. She sat down with me and explained to me the benefits of taking advantage of the writing center. These advantages included understanding assignments, creating drafts to brainstorm ideas, developing a thesis statement, and just general help in writing assignments. The people there seemed to be passionate about the work that they do, and confident that they could help the student that need help. The writing center in general helps students develop better and college level writing skills, in all aspects. I learned that if you attend the writing center for help, the aids there document your participation and inform your professor that you used the writing center for their papers. I also noticed that many professors recommend using the help provided by the writing center.

P.S- Im sorry but it was to awkward to ask Sandy for a selfie…

 

I recently went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I have gone through the Japanese art exhibition. It was a very pleasant experience for quite a few reasons. One of which is that it showed artwork, which I would consider masterpieces, that was very aesthetic and pleasing to the eye. The picture shown on the side is me in front of one of these pieces. The piece shown is a portrait of a buddhist priest named Ingen Ryuki, who created and spread a new sect of buddhism all over Japan. Not only did this piece allow me to learn new historical facts, but it also showed me that seeing is learning too. In other words, visual learning is important. This lesson will potentially help me throughout college whenever I encounter a difficult subject that may be an obstacle in my path to graduation. While my first semester at Baruch College has been fun, it has also been quite busy, especially with many reading assignments and quizzes. In one of my assignments, I was asked to define and explain a term from Economics class known as “elasticity”. The first thought that came to my mind was to read the entire chapter that was dedicated to this term. Although this an effective way to learn it, it is inefficient since it is very time-consuming. Then I thought of a better idea, which was to watch a video on elasticity on an online website. This video was a great, visual way of explaining this economic concept to me since it visually showed people in a market performing examples that can be explained through elasticity. Overall, the experience at the museum was a success since I learned something new that I could use to help me with me academics. It would have taken me a long time to learn about Ingen Ryuki’s piece if I had read it from a textbook instead of actually seeing it my self.

 

Reaching out and trying out new activities is something that I seldom do, if ever. As with most humans, I do not want to leave the zone that I call secure. However, with the large variety of clubs and societies at Baruch, I decided that it would not hurt to at least visit some of these introductory meetings. FES, the finance and economics society, caught my attention. The activities in this society, even in this introductory meeting, ended up stuck in my brain, something to consider and not simply forget the day after. I was able to learn several things regarding the society, such as that this was the first finance society created in Baruch, that members will have to perform several activities that are both fun and educational, or that people can create connections toward firms that are well known. And the best of all, there is free food!

 

 

FES provided an engaging and welcoming introduction. The president introduced several key programs, such as the mentorship program, a program for freshman and sophomores to improve themselves professionally in areas like the resume or the interview, or the analyst program, a program to help students in finance become technically adept. We were also given an activity where we created structures out of ten sticks and tape, and had to place a marshmallow as high as possible. This allowed us to think critically, and sometimes unconventionally.

Baruch college provides plenty of opportunities to engage with the community, and this  is just one of them. This society can connect you to many people in the professional world. Such things may even be put on the resume. Every person has different interests, but I would definitely look into clubs and societies. If I were to take anything out of this, it would be that it was enjoyable.

For the first FRO blog post, I decided to go to a student life event. I went to the Latino Heritage Month Opening Ceremony in the 2nd floor lobby on Thursday, September 7th. It was interesting and fun to attend, and it was great to learn a little about Hispanic Heritage. The DJ was fun and played awesome Spanish music that got everyone dancing, and he even played some songs that I loved and were familiar with. I even learned that our school has a newspaper called “The Ticker”, and I considered joining it, until I then I remembered that I’m a horrible writer and I don’t like to write, so it’s not for me. There was also some Spanish food that looked really good, but I was full from eating lunch so I decided not to eat anything. The downside to this event was that there were so many people crowded in the lobby and many of them were on top of me which I then started to feel uncomfortable and claustrophobic. Hopefully the next event won’t make me feel as claustrophobic as this one so I can enjoy the event more.

For my academic workshop, I went to check out the Writing Center in the building. It took me about 20 minutes to find because I was getting directions from other freshman, but I got there. The main reason I visited the Writing Center was to see what it could provide me in terms of help with writing and revising my essays for my various classes. I have some really strict teachers this semester that are heavy on reading and writing, so I am going to need to take advantage of the Writing Center. I did not have a Writing Center like the one in Baruch in my high school that provided that type of service, so I am really excited to see how my writing can improve if I consistently go there asking for more help. I learned that the people that work in this Writing Center are really experienced in what they do, and I am excited to meet some of them to really learn how to write better. The lady in the front desk gave me a paper with all the workshops they will be providing, and I am looking forward to going to these meetings.

FRO class.

I wish I had the opportunity to attend one of the many workshops or club meetings that Baruch has to offer. I couldn’t get toany this Thursday however I saw under the academic section that I can attend an exhibition offered at a NYC museum.

Today I decided to visit the Museum of Modern Art, my girlfriend joined me and we had a nice time. The museum was crowded and we decided to start from the top and work our way down. The exhibition on the fifth floor was memorable because the art was very abstract especially certain sculptures that seemed simplistic. For example paintings with one big word or a splat across it was considered art.
A particular piece I remembered was a sculpture that was a tub of what look like mud or clay that was boiling, I found that remarkable. I found the architectural art on the third floor very interesting. As we learned about city planning and how practical it is and how beautiful how it can also be at the same time.
Overall I had a wonderful time seeing the different styles of art and learned a lot while doing so, it was a nice experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I joined the Maker Hub organization at Baruch. The Maker Hub organization at Baruch is a place where students can meet together to learn about and use new technology. They offer interesting workshops such as “Light Up Your Stuff with LEDs” and have a large array of things to do. I though it is a very interesting thing to join because you can learn a lot of cool things with 3D printing and the people who run the show are really helpful. I was glad to meet William who explained everything to me. It was also really interesting because other members of the organization have skills that can be taught to me and help me in the future. For example, one of the head people knows how to code Swift 3. In the future, being a part of the organization means that I can learn a lot from people who have a skill set that I would like to learn about. Another impression I have on the organization is that there is a lot of potential. Currently it is a small organization which is really cool because no one knows exactly what the organization can grow into if a large audience joins. I plan on being active and involved in the organization by attending the workshops they have, by helping other students who are interested in this organization, and by growing the organization. Furthermore, I plan on being active by bringing new ideas of what to do for the future and helping those plans become a reality. Another cool and interesting part of the organization is that they have a bunch of resources that are hard and expensive to come by. The 3D printer for example can be used to create items that I imagine and make them become a true reality. I am really excited and happy to be apart of such an amazing program that Baruch offers with such a helpful and nice leadership!

Hey guys!

This Thursday, September 7th, 2017, I went to SASA’s interest meeting. I planned on going to the meeting because I wanted to join a club where I would be able to find people with similar backgrounds. I am glad that I went to SASA’s meeting as I was able to meet new people. It was an amazing turn out! We had about twenty to thirty people attend the meeting and kicked off the year playing the ice breaker “Move your Booty”. The ice breaker activity was a lot of fun; people were laughing as everyone tried to avoid being the last one standing in the middle of the circle. I really liked this ice breaker because you were able to learn peoples’ names quick. I made a couple of friends there as everyone broke away from the ice breaker to “chit chaat” and enjoy the refreshing aloo chaat. Everyone in SASA is amicable and very welcoming. I encourage other freshmen to join SASA!

 

#goSASA #ALOOCHAAT #Friends #anewbeginning #BARUCH #CLASSOF2021 #SOUTHASIANPRIDE