One would have to lack all human compassion to not be moved by the amazing pieces students read at the Baruch Voices event. Students wrote heartfelt monologue ranging from topics such as Pokemon to love to depression. It is amazing to see the bravery of these students; sharing in front of a class of familiar faces, in front of strangers it’s terrifying. It was so lovely to hear Vanessa’s monologue again because it was just as powerful and emotion evoking as it once the first time. I was saddened to see that not more of our fellow freshman attended the event. I think it would have been nice to hear monologues written by our advisors as well. The emotion in the room was almost touchable. It would have been nice to be able to meet the authors to have a deepened understanding of the people writing. It’s great to know I attend a college in which people are comfortable enough to share their emotions with strangers.

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.

Technically the title doesn’t apply to this blog post or event because there was nothing careerwise about it. I attended Baruch Voices (or at least part of the presentation) for my third and final blog post. Surprisingly there were quite a few from our section of Freshman seminar class in support (though I’m more inclined to believe they were all there because they needed that third blog post). From our class, we elected Elias and Vanessa to present their monologues. They both had brilliant pieces which I genuinely enjoyed. Elias’ witty humor challenges the purpose and necessity of this class (which I second) while Vanessa’s is personal and emotional. Several other students from the other freshman seminar classes went on stage to perform, some were witty, others personal, and others that I really didn’t understand but nonetheless we the audience gave them a hearty round of applause after they were done speaking. I would’ve stayed for the whole thing but I had a nasty exam that I had to prep for and since I don’t get home until 10pm on Thursdays I try to gulp down every moment of studying that I have.

Fot my 3rd and final blog post I would like to write about the study abroad fair I attended for my academic enrichment workshop.  I didn’t really know where to go at first since the signs on the booths were not very clear. It seemed as if they focused more on visually enticing you with graphic design and pictures of the locations around the school in an effort to get you to sign up with them rather than tell you exactly which booth was for what school or area. Luckily the reps themselves were helpful enough. So i started by simply going from one table to the next sequentially, talking to reps about their schools and where it is, but also the sorts of areas I was interested in. The reps were nice enough to, based on my preferences, point me in the direction of the schools that were situated in the areas I cared about. So I promptly headed to the booths for the the university of Paris, where I was introduced to some lovely french students from the UP who walked me through all the various attractions around the university. The rep himself was very helpful and informative, gave me plenty of info on the various programs available for Baruch students none of which unfortunately were open to first year student. But nonetheless he gave me plenty of pamphlets detail how I could join those programs and when, going through all the various requirements i would need to meet. It wasn’t until about half way through the conversation that he let it slip that he was actually originally from morocco the conversation promptly turned from about education to just a casual conversation in arabic about morocco, the cities we were from. Overall the fair was fairly successful I would say, and pretty enjoyable personally.

As you all may know, Baruch college has many individual institutions in place specifically designated to help students with whatever it is they need. One of these is the writing center at Baruch where you can set an appointment and be offered help for whatever writing or speech assignment you may have from well educated mentors. Recently I had gone to the writing center for help with my English 2100 class. I was tasked to write a short 4 page comparison paper in which i’d have to choose a controversial topic in society and compare two sides. I had no idea what I was going to write my paper on and I recall a man coming into our class to tell us about he writing center and I decided to do it. I went to a brainstorming session and to be honest I didn’t expect it to be very helpful at first due to my natural skeptic state of mind. With all things considered, the meeting was incredibly helpful and it put me on the right track to write my comparison paper on a topic that is very interesting to me. I won’t state the topic due to the fact that fellow classmates might want to steal my idea and I’m not having that. I was really impressed with the knowledge of these mentors and now I know that if I ever do need actual help with work I can rely on Baruch’s many facilities to get my work done.

On Thursday, 7 th  April, I attended a ‘‘writing winning resume” workshop by Starr career center. It was very helpful as it told me about the various steps involved in making a resume and the major components of the Resume. The resume which are preferred by companies are those which have a organized form, which use bullets and has readable fonts(sizes should be either 10 or 12, no smaller than them). The comic san font is a big no. The use of power words is very Important(such as analyzed, collaborated, contributed, etc.), it impresses the companies. The resumes should use a lot of numbers and industry jargon, to make their resumes impressive. The resumes should be no longer than 1 page. If the resumes are not organized then they will be thrown into trash. This workshop was very helpful as it helped me understand the things recruiters take into consideration and what separates a good resume from a bad resume. I recommend this workshop to everyone as it will help in making successful resumes for internships and jobs.

Today I attended a workshop by STARR career development center concerning internships.  Actually, I was the only freshman attending it. I learned many aspects about internships I did not know before. There were discussed two types of internships: unpaid and paid ones. In fact, companies nowadays hire students who went through paid internships 3 times more frequently than ones who went unpaid. To add to that, today job vacancies are becoming more and more competitive. We were told that it is possible to arrange a job interview on campus. In most cases companies who interview students on campus have more than 300 applicants; they choose 12 to interview and one to hire. Numbers are a little bit scary. Additionally, companies have begun to look for freshmen to hire.

I also learned about websites where I can search for jobs and internships besides STARR webpage. Besides local job and internship suggestions, we were told about options to get experience abroad.

Unfortunately, it is more difficult for international students as me to get a job or internship in US than for other students. However,  it is possible to succeed with OPT or CPT trainings.

All in all, I learned a lot of new information on workship and it encouraged me to attend more seminars about career building.

On Monday, Skai and myself attended the Sidney Mishkin Gallery located near the Baruch Campus. Not only was I unaware of this gallery, but also unaware of the fact that it was 10 minutes away and more importantly FREE. On entering, the building seemed rather official and I felt as though I was entering a court room which made me even more excited to see the artwork. After checking our Baruch ID’s we were granted access and I was partially surprised at the size of the gallery. My classmates had mentioned that the gallery was small; but I would consider it tiny. However just because it’s tiny, doesn’t mean it’s bad. The artwork was captivating and thought-provoking. My favorite piece, as you can see in the picture, included the skeleton pieces: as it was clear, intriguing and odd. I also liked the colors and visual techniques used in the other paintings because it provided a good variety. There was one picture, that caught my attention, of what seemed like a prosthetic leg with a red to black ombre background. I especially liked the ombre background as I felt it emphasized the “prosthetic leg”, making it the main focus of the artwork. The colors used also created dimensions and brought my attention back to it a couple of times. The gallery, also included 2 other pieces that I particularly liked because of its colors. They included a variety of neon colors all of which created a euphoric feel. As I described to Skai, “It felt as though I was on LSD.”