Freshman Seminar Spring 2011: F6A

My first semester at Baruch College is nearly complete, it was fun all the way. It has its up and down. I have to juggle between work and study. It is a new experience for me as a girl from non-English speaking country struggles to study here in the most advance country of the world.

Before I was admitted into the Baruch College, some of my friend told me it’s one of the prestigious colleges in New York. During the first semester, I found out that the professors and the faculty live up to the high standard as I had expected.

I had a wonderful time at Baruch College. I enjoyed New York winter walking in the snow on the way to the college although I came from tropical country. The classrooms are not crowded and the teachers can pay much attention to each and every students. I like the attitudes of the teachers who tried to get the best out of me. I have a comfortable relationship with my fellow students.

I will try and pay more attention to the instructions of the teachers. I’ll allocate more time to my studies, less time to my web browsing.

I think I am more mature than last year. I knew more about people and places. I have more confidence in myself. I see a  glimmer of my bright future after I graduated from Baruch College as an accountant.

Time flies by so quickly as I am happy and content gaining valuable education at Baruch College.

   Everything exists for its own reason. Anything happening outhere is natural. That’s what it is. If the God creates the world, he creates those people who are gays, as well. It is ashame that people use Bible as a ____ to against homosexuality. I don’t believe in God, but I do think that Bible helps us a lot. It teaches us to be good ones. However, it is just a book, a book written by human being almost two thousand years ago. It’s wisdom but it doesn’t mean that everything in the book is exactly right and suitable for today. People believe what they want to believe and they ignore what they don’t want to see. That’s why those Christian discriminate gay people. Because for them, homosexuality is what they don’t want to believe. If they ever try to understand how hard it is for those gay people to decide to let people know who they really are, they will know how brave those people are. It is not a choice at all, just like that you can choose who you want to be in love with. Who will choose to be in such a hard situation if they do have a choice. God loves everyone including the gay people. There’s no reason to be against them since they don’t harm anyone and they just want to be who they are.

Before I watched this movie, I had a friend who is a gay. He used to talk about how he loves boys. I noticed he used to gaze at the boys in a loving manner, but he is indifferent to the girls around him. I didn’t pay too much attention to him about his feelings and psychological aspect of his mind. Then, I had a lesbian friend who declared her love for me. I told her I am not interested in that kind of relationship and I considered her only as a friend. After a couple of weeks, she found another girl as her lover. Our religion is tolerance in every aspect of human life, so we don’t have too much problems in our society concerning homosexuality.

While I was watching the movie, I was puzzle by the problems facing Muslim’s homosexual people. They have a hard time living their lives in a religion and society that condemns their sexual preferences. It was a new experience for me. I felt sorry for the plight.

After I watched the movie, my mind wondered how to solve this problems. I don’t know what to do or what to advice. There must be reconciliation between religion and the faithful, but I don’t know how or when that will be reached.

I watched the film “For the Bible tells me so” . Although it was very informative it didn’t really show me anything new. The discrimination against gays and lesbians isn’t right but it is evident. It is a little obvious, throughout history, every minority has had some sort of discrimination and tough times. It is in everyone’s best interest to let everyone be but the people who are such religious or just anti gay extremist will never be able to get it. The more we dwell on these sort of uninformed and closed minded individuals the more free pr we give them. The people shown in this documentary are people who grew up knowing only one thing only one way of life and that is the Christian right. for myself I don’t see the gay life style to be correct but I do not think that they should be seen as second class citizens. The people who only see one way of life and see no way of accepting anyone else should be left alone, if we all try to change their mind we will do exactly what they are doing… trying to force someone to change who never will. the gays will always be gay and some might be accepted and some might not be and the Christian extremist will always be extreme .

It was really helpful to know what you will need and what you will not to put in your resume or in an interview. Most of the things she talked about i already knew it, but anyway sometime is helpful to hearing it again.
First of all my goal is to graduate, what i will do about my carreer before or after my graduation i have no idea. I have experiences working for big companies so having a good resume is not an issue. I never heard about Starr Carreer Development Center before, so i think if in the future i would like to do some kind of intership or something it would be easier if i have this kind of program that helps us to perform well during an interview and gets us in touch with the right hiring managers.

Attending voices was very exciting. Being able to see another person act out my monologue was interesting. Before i heard her say my words, i knew who was going to do it. Listening to everyone’s blogs allowed me to explore myself. By listening to other peoples thought i found more about myself that i had yet to realize. I found myself relating to many other situations. Voices was a wonderful experience.

o How does this space make you feel?
– Being inside of the museum was very relaxing. It released calm vibes.

o Does it trigger any new ideas or thoughts?
– I thought about learning more on the cultures i saw.

o Is this a space where you feel comfortable and belong, or do you feel uncomfortable and stressed out?
– i felt extremely comfortable being there.

* What did you learn about yourself from being at the museum?
– I learned that i enjoy seeing different cultures and traditions. i never enjoyed it before.

1. What were your thoughts on the enrichment workshop?
– I thought that the enrichment workshop was very enlightening. i learned a lot about the workshops and career opportunities from using them.
2. What career goals do you have and what do you plan on doing to attain them?
– My goal is to obtain a degree in Finance and become a financial adviser or analyst.
3. Did the presentation answer any questions you had about career development?
If not, what are some other concerns you have?
– They answered my questions about resume help. I learned about things i should and should not do concerning my resume.
4. Did the workshop answer any questions you had about the Starr Career Development Center?
-I wanted to know if they had job fairs and i learned they host a few of them.
5. What services provided by the career center would you be interested in using?
– Job fairs.

VOICES… i didn’t really like it. It had some fun and sad moments, but i would prefer to see a play made by them. We are not writters. It was a good idea to write monologues to the class because we know each other better now, but it was a waste of our time. Most of the people had to asked for a day off or had to leave their work to go to something that it wasn’t worthy. Maybe next time it should be during weekend or after 6 pm where nobody have any problem to assist.
One thing i have to admit is that the actors and actresses put o lot of effort to tried to do something with the monologs and i appreciate that. But in general i didn’t like it.

To be honest, comparing with other mandatory museum’s experience, this one was suprising. When i first came to NYC i did an english course and we went to the MoMA.It was really nice, but we were all the time looking at the watches to knew when we can leave. This is what it usually happend when something is mandatory. People have jobs, families, appointments and they not always enjoy the museums as they should.I thought it was going to be one of those experiences where you look for the first sculture you find to write about and complete the assigment. Instead, it wasn’t the best experience in my life, but it was okay. I really enjoy looking around. I don’t know if it was because de icyed Buddha exhibition or what, but it was crowded. I also liked the idea that there is a caffe inside. It was really nice.
While i was looking around in the floor that was assigned, i found lots of things that i liked. I had to find something to write about in this blog. First i found this elephant-ish, the “Dancing Ganapati”, that is the lord of beginnings and the lord of obstacles. It was amazing how the scultor made every detail, the head of an elephant, the body of a human, his 10 arms, every hand doing a different movement and it was dancing on a mouse.
Then i found this statue, the “Standing Arhat”. According to Buddhism, is a spiritual practitioner that comes to high levels of concentration and has gained a deep understanding about the true nature of existence. Which also has reached the state of being freed from both, the suffering and the cycle of rebirth and therefore, will not be born again. I can’t really explain why, but this statue gave me so much peace. After that, my round was done and i went home.
But before leaving i take a little souvenir, the water of the icying Buddha. So, when i was on the subway coming back home, i was happy because i have a little bottle with water and i have pace.