On September 3, 2015 12:30 PM- 2:30 PM, I attended the first General Interest Meeting of the Vietnamese Student Association.
As you can see, in the back toward the left, I’m the only brown guy in this picture. On top of that, I’m not Vietnamese either. So why did I decide to attend this event? Well, to be honest my friends sort of dragged me into coming here. However, I have to say, I’m really glad I was able to take part in it. It was a great experience and it led me into taking part of more of VSA’s events.
In this event, we learned some aspects of Vietnamese culture along with what activities this club does to further our knowledge of the experiences of Vietnamese people. Also, this club discusses the network within Baruch and across the nation. Our Baruch VSA is represented through a teddy bear that we call Pholecia Bear. For those that don’t know, Pho is a popular Vietnamese bowl of soup, so the name is a pun based on that word. The bear is located in the back to the far right of this picture. Other VSA from other colleges have Teddy Bears as well and their names have puns in it too like Todd Bearington and Ambear. Anyways, before I get off topic, another thing we did in this event was play ice breakers to get to know everyone. In doing so, it turns out that more than half the club itself isn’t Vietnamese. That’s one thing that I found interesting. This club wasn’t strict on just one race/culture, but instead they were open to people from all over, including me. Through playing ice breaker, I was able to meet many new friends and I’ve decided to join this club because I just couldn’t turn it down. One of my other reasons to come was to try the food and that desire was fulfilled as well because the club provided Banh Mi (Vietnamese Sandwiches) as well as Pizza. In the end, the experience was amazing and the food was delicious. I ended up partaking in their future events as well which included their Game Night and many more.