The selfie above is from the media room in NVC 1-107. The screen says Baruch Voices but the glare makes it not show up…

Anyways for my third event, I went to Baruch Voices to fulfill my academic requirement for the blogs. It was pretty cool to see all the other various freshman seminar classes come together to share their monologues. From our class, Illias and Vanessa represented us with their monologues. Just as they did in class, they gave a really good monologue today. I came to the event around ten minutes late (12:40 PM) but was just in time to see Illias and Vanessa give their presentations. Some of the other monologue presentations from the other classes were pretty cool too. Several of them incorporated rhyming techniques or had their monologue be presented as a rap verse. Hearing people spit bars was really nice to hear. In general, the atmosphere of the event was really positive and understanding. All monologues were given lots of applause and because some of them were personal, it got really intense. Although the event ended around 1:11 PM, and was pretty short, in that short time a lot happened. Overall, I’d recommend others to go to Baruch Voices next time it happens as it is a unique experience.

For my second event I attended an Intro to the NYC Startup Scene, hosted by the professional fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi in association with General Assembly. General Assembly is an educational institution that strives to teach young people what they love to do. Personally I learned what a start up really is – a temporary organization trying to find a business model. Start-ups include FourSquare, Kickstarter, Tumblr, and Warby Parker. They consist of the startup itself, partners, investors, talent, and mentors. What was interesting to me was that Daniel Halper was originally from Cornell and got into Deloitte (One of the best accounting firms out there) before getting into General Assembly. I learned that to begin, I needed to think of a problem that needed to be solved and have a unique solution to that problem. These are the problem statements and unique value propositions. I also learned that it was more of a marathon and not a sprint. You should only do it if you’re passionate and really into it. Originally I was solely focused on the world of finance, but now I see that start ups are an interesting path to follow as well.

For my first student life workshop my friend suggested that I attend a rush event for a professional fraternity DSP (Delta Sigma Pi). For the student life workshop, I wanted to attend a club/organization event and possibly join one because I quickly realized in the first week of the semester that if I didn’t put myself out there, I wouldn’t be able to meet new people. I’m a finance major and I’m looking towards investment banking, so my friend Josh suggested I try to rush for DSP to increase my network and to surround myself with intelligent people. Before going to the rush events, I honestly had no idea what I would be looking forward to and thus every event was a completely new experience. Since every event was a new experience, I was pleasantly surprised to be met with outgoing and intelligent people as well as to be able to eat free food.

I attended many rush events, so the event that I would like to highlight is the Alumni Panel that DSP hosted on February 11 from 7-9 PM. Much like the other rush events, there was free food! Normally the events serve free food in the form of pizza or Subway sandwiches, but for the alumni panel event DSP went all out and bought pasta. It was very interesting to hear alumni of Baruch with successful careers at Barclays, BlackRock, and Razorfish to name a few speak on their own experiences at DSP. By the end of the event, I learned a lot about business in general and received a lot of insight into Baruch. I would recommend others to attend rush events next semester because they are very insightful. And if you don’t enjoy it, at least you get free food! –Ian Chi