Category Archives: Class Profiles

Profile of Luis Lucero

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Baruch student and 20-year-old, Luis Lucero, of Kew Gardens in Queens, has a deep passion for entertainment.  His eclectic list of tv-shows, movies, and music are incredible, especially for a young individual of this generation.  “Sci-Fi, animations, drama, documentary, comedy are his favorites,” Lucero said.  Some of these tv shows, he notes includes, Seinfeld, Boardwalk Empire, South Park, Ken Burns’ America, The Soup, Sopranos and The Simpsons (specifically seasons 2-12), amongst many others.  When it comes to movies, Lucero favorites are Star Wars Trilogy, Forrest Gump, Superman, Back to the Future, Twelve Chairs, Time Bandits and Young Frankenstein, amongst a number of others.  A varied tastes for tv shows and movies is indicative to Lucero’s expressive nature.

Apart from his love for sports such as swimming, bike riding and bowling, Lucero enjoys spending time out with his friends. There is one thing he absolutely needs and that is his iPod.  Lucero strongly emphasizes that “I can’t do without my iPod because I can’t survive without listening to great music.”  Lucero identified four music genre’s that he listens to all the time. Some of his favorites hard rock/heavy metal artists include: AC/DC, Aerosmith, Van Halen (specifically the Roth and Hagar eras), Led Zeppelin, Chicken Foot, Velvet Revolver, Black Sabbath, The Who, the classic lineup of Guns N’ Roses and of course, Rolling Stones. The lineup of favorite artists in progressive rock features: The Alan Parsons Project, Dream Theater, Emerson, Lake & Palmer/Powell, Electric Light Orchestra and Pink Floyd.  His smallest genre list features alternative rock artists such as: Altair Bridge, Foo Fighters, Oasis, U2.  Lastly, other favorite artists that Lucero identifies under miscellaneous are: Benny Benassi, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller Orchestra, Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Billy Joel, Elton John.

Adding to his expressive nature and with plans to become magazine or newspaper writer, Lucero states that “I love writing. I consider it as my personal favorite method of expressing myself. Whether it’s on a blog or on The Ticker (Baruch’s newspaper), I always write when given the opportunity.”

 

Class Profile: Yelena Melnichenko

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Writing has always been a strong suit of Yelena Melnichenko. “It’s something I’ve been doing since I was a kid. Even when I was little I’d write short stories for my teachers and create mystery novels.” Intrigued by the research that surrounded the mystery, the process of solving crimes always caught her eye. I asked if police work was something she would be interested in, maybe something like CSI. She responded with an abrupt “NO” she can’t stand even the thought of blood.

 

“I’ve always wanted to pull my writing together with photography. I’d done some photography over the years at centers for events but nothing too serious and I hope to get back into it.” Her strenuous school schedule has drawn her away from her love of photography. Ideally she wants to one day pursue a career that can tie together both her love for writing and photography. We spoke briefly about occupations that bring both worlds together, after some thought she said that an internship at somewhere like NatGeo would be an ideal introduction into the industry.

 

Something that many people may not know about Yelena is that she is actually an immigrant to this country from the Ukraine. In 1997 she moved to the US while she was in first grade. She was forced to take ESL when she first arrived although after only a month of tutoring, she not only placed out of the class but was told that her reading surpassed most of her peers. She claims that it has to do with reading and writing always being one of her hobbies although I can’t help but think it’s more than that. I also have many friends that immigrated to this country from foreign places. They are all bi or tri -lingual, rather than my American peers who primarily only speak English. We went on to speak about the difference in the educational system there and here, what I found was that foreign language is stressed more so in other countries than it is here. Yes, we might offer Spanish, French, even at some schools languages like Chinese or Latin but the fashion in which it is taught is much different. The curriculum is more strenuous, the assignments are more in depth, and the cultural standard is that you should without a doubt speak more than one language.

 

Yelena was a classmate of mine that I did not get to know too much inside of class, although when we got the chance to speak I was pleasantly surprised with everything I found out. I’m always interested to hear about my peers, especially when they’re from somewhere I’m not to familiar with. I’m going to take Yelena’s advice and “take the time to look into the details,” to learn more about her culture and where she hails from.

A Passion Without Borders (Gilberto Vazquez)

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We are each born with a unique set of gifts, predestined upon us before our birth. It is up to us to identify, develop and nurture them appropriately.  However, there are some instances when the dreams and passions of some remain unfulfilled.
 For Gilberto Vazquez, 33, it was during his time as a Field Artillery Officer, in the United States Army, that his constant, “quest for knowledge,” became apparent.  Vazquez’s creative roots trace back to his childhood years growing up in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York.
 “I used to write short stories and really wanted to be a video game designer when I was a kid,” said Vazquez. “Growing up, I also wanted to be an archaeologist because I wanted to unravel ancient bones.”
 Vazquez’s innate humanism followed him through his childhood and into his teenage years. In 2004, partly inspired by the terrorist attacks on September 11th, Vazquez enlisted and was deployed to Iraq to fight in the war against terror.  It was here that Vazquez’s underlying spark for journalism was lit.
 “I like information so I started to learn a little bit of Arabic, about 100 conversational words to help me tell the people in Iraq what I needed to,” said Vazquez.  “Once I came back home, I took up German.  It’s all about my desire to gain more knowledge.”  To date, Vazquez can speak English, Spanish, German, French and Arabic, although he admits to not have used Arabic in the past ten years.
Documenting and protesting during Occupy Wall Street

Vazquez showing support of Army Veterans while documenting and protesting during Occupy Wall Street

Instead of following the route of most returning Veterans, Vazquez did not look to become a cop or security officer.  He chose to remain committed to his dreams and pursue a career in journalism.

 “The military was a stepping stone for me. It helped me pay for 90 percent of my education and it opened up a lot of my passions,” said Vazquez.  “I feel as if I always had the passion, but it definitely helped.”
 Vazquez attended the Borough of Manhattan Community College where he eventually earned his Associate’s Degree.  He is now nearing the end of his third semester in Baruch College as a journalism and creative writing major. Other than his educational responsibilities, Vazquez is a father to a two-year-old daughter and works full time at Costco Wholesale in the Rego Park section of Queens, New York.
 “I believe that it is more important to work towards your career than it is to just work to pay the bills,” said Vazquez.  “I don’t want to just end up at the same job for five years either.  I want to focus on my career as a journalist.” 
 Vazquez views his character development and maturation as his unyielding desire to constantly do better for himself.  Vazquez prides himself on his education and his goals.  An activist at heart, Vazquez plans to start his own website and surround himself with a talented team of reporters to assist him write articles and make documentaries on the the ever-changing state of the world.
 “I am a jack-of-all-trades with so many different passions and with things that I have excelled at, so it is hard for me to focus on just one goal for myself,” said Vazquez.  Journalism allows me to utilize my diverse skill-set to branch out to all of the different passions that I have and incorporate those into my life.”

 

Anthony Califano – Class Profile

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Baruch College offers many exciting opportunities for those who seek them. For most students, Baruch is a school of business. For Anthony Califano of Morris Park, NY, Baruch is but a stop on his path to a dream job.

“I enjoy learning about the human mind, behavior, and interactions,” he said, “At the same time, writing is a way for me to express myself,” he added.

Anthony described his mild frustration of majoring in psychology with Baruch having the reputation of a Business school. Additionally, Anthony expressed that his dream position would be combining psychology and journalism.

“Baruch is known as the business school,” Anthony said, “When I tell people that I go to Baruch they automatically think I am studying business or accounting,” he added with frustration.

Anthony prides himself on having a unique combination of skills and classes, majoring in psychology but also minoring in journalism.

“When people discover that I’m studying psychology and journalism, they are caught off guard. Although it’s known for business, I still believe Baruch offers a lot of opportunities for all of their students and it is in the middle of one of the greatest cities, what more could you ask for,” Anthony said.

Anthony also expressed his main passion, helping people.

“My passions include helping people with their struggles, using writing as self expression, and discovering who I am and how I want to live my life,” Anthony explained.

Anthony does not seek to pursue his dream job simply for monetary gain. Anthony not only helps others but also learns more about himself in the process.

“For me, life is about self exploration and every day no matter what I am doing, I learn more about myself.”

Anthony does not show much panic about his future. Rather, Anthony feels that he has learned a lot about himself through his experiences in Baruch and this makes him ready to take on the world.

With his journalistic skills, Anthony stated that he would prefer to become freelance with a focus on self help. Essentially,  he’d be writing his own column.

“One of the major differences from my old self is that I am more mature. I’ve always been mature but I was never really serious about my future. Now I have a plan and I’m going to work hard at it,” he said.

 

Class Profile – Matthew Rozanski

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We have all had those high school dreams of getting that one job after college. Then college comes and it turns out that it is not as easy as we thought it would be. Matthew Rozanski, a student at Baruch College, was one of those high school kids who didn’t know what was coming his way.

“In high school, I convinced myself that becoming a business major would be fun and easy. Baruch, being the business school it is, made that choice easy. I was wrong,” he said.

IMG_20141025_163358Matthew was born and raised in Ridgewood, NY. New York City has always been the apple of his eye. “I love New York overall. The music scene is cool in places like Williamsburg. Bars are cool, clubs are awful and usually trashy. Food is awesome. New York is definitely a love of mine,” he said.

Before entering college, he always had a fancy for writing because of its ability to help him self express. “I’d like to say I’ve been writing since I was in diapers. I’m out of my mind and imaginative in the weirdest ways, so I like to sketch my ridiculousness out on paper with words,” he said.

Although writing has always been a passion of his, he didn’t quite know what he wanted to focus on in the future. “I’m not a focused person at all. I have the attention span of a watermelon and I really need to beat myself up to focus on something. I kind of figured everything out after an in depth talk with my mom,” he said.

Now, as he is taking a feature article writing class, he continues to strive at being a better writer while still enjoying the college life. “This class has helped the flow of my writing. Other than that, I have enjoyed the laughs and the cool people around me,” he said.

The future is a scary thing to think about for anyone, even for Matthew. “I hope I’m doing the things I love to do: writing, traveling, singing, and dancing. I really don’t know honestly; the future kind of scares me a bit. I live for the moment,” he said.

So for all the people out there thinking life after high school is the best thing that will ever happen to them, Matthew has a little advice for them. “I don’t have everything together but I’m good at making it seem like I do. And I have more in common with whoever is reading this than they think.”

Johanna Mattsson: Media Dreamer

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She is always caught up on all of the latest news with the help of her TV and breaking news phone apps, and she’ll never forgive you if you know a piece of current events trivia that she doesn’t. That’s because Johanna Mattsson is a self-proclaimed news junkie.

“I get anxious if I don’t know all the news that’s happening!” she said.

Mattsson, 23, first began reporting in high school when she chose to give up lacrosse and soccer due to too many concussions. Though she could no longer play, she became the manager of Greenwich High School’s lacrosse team where she helped to write up game reports. During her time as both a player and manager, Mattsson was surrounded by reporters and broadcasters who were covering the games and loved the special atmosphere she found herself in. It was then that she knew that she wanted to work in media. “It’s so exciting to see how fast everything happens,” she said.

IMG_7430Her passion for media landed her various different internships with local publications and TV stations. She is currently working as an intern at a national media company, where she is experiencing the media world firsthand.

Mattsson emigrated from Sweden to the United States with her family when she was seven years old, and settled into Greenwich, Connecticut where she still lives today. Though going to school in the US without knowing a word of English was hard, Mattson said that learning English from the bottom up made learning other languages such as Spanish and German easier.

The biggest challenge she faces, Mattsson said, is deciding which area of media she wants to pursue. What she does know, though, is that she will be happy with “any job that requires an attention to detail in a media atmosphere.” She also enjoys copy editing and will start a copy editing job in December. “I’m a grammar nerd,” Mattsson said with a smile.

Travelling is also one of her passions, and she was able to combine journalism and travel on a trip abroad to Australia where she reported on and studied media in Australia. “It was the best decision I’ve ever made,” she said of the trip.

Today, Mattsson is a Macaulay Honors student at Baruch College and is a double major in journalism and psychology. She hopes to one day move to New York City and live in the media capital of the world.

“If you work in media,” Mattsson said, “it’s where you want to be.”

Hayley Bifulco

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For most people, saying that your major is in journalism and creative writing leads them to think that you may like to write stories of some kind, whether it be news or tales of fiction. But for Hayley Bifulco, the motive to have a major in journalism is slightly different. “I never particularly loved writing because I didn’t think I was very creative or good at it. Journalism gives the plot of the story and then I get to choose the way to tell it.”

The 21 year old senior at Baruch lived in West Hempstead her whole life, and while she may not love writing, she certainly enjoys acting and theater. “I’m in the Fine and Performing Arts Department’s Fall production of “Lysistrata” as Lysistrata, which runs from November 18-22,” Bifulco said. “I studied acting at my community college and picked up the theater minor at Baruch  because I need more credits to graduate on time and I already had a lot of the theater minor prerequisites.” Other than acting, she also works on Long Island as a soccer instructor for preschool-aged children and volunteers at her church.

The decision to transfer from a community college to Baruch was a relatively easy decision though. “I needed to transfer after receiving my associates and CUNY and SUNY schools were the only affordable options, but very good ones.” Eventually, a journalism faculty member recommended taking feature article writing. “I’m glad I registered for it this semester,” she said. Ideally, in the future, if there was a way to combine her theater and journalism experience together, “that would be awesome.”

 

 

Anson Chan: Gamer and Writer

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Anson Chan from Douglaston, New York prepares to graduate from Baruch this school year with a degree in Politics and Journalism.

“I like things that don’t involve math,” Chan said. The craft of writing has always been “the most natural thing” to him. While his peers, who excelled in math, complained about essay assignments, Chan never minded the task.

“Sure, they took longer to write than a math assignment or something, but it was much easier,” Chan said.

Chan writes his own column in The Ticker about video games. “It gives me an excuse to play more often.” When he’s not gaming he watches videos produced by Rooster Teeth, a short-film production company. They create short films, live action and animated, or films that use interactive engines from computer and video games. This company influenced Chan to work on video-editing of his own in his free time.

His dream job is to work for Rooster Teeth. They recently opened a news-related department and Chan hopes his journalism skills learned at Baruch will help him in the hiring process post-graduation.

 

Stephanie Kotsikonas: Born to Write

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Stephanie with her poodle, Daisy.

Stephanie with her poodle, Daisy.

NEW YORK—“Words are so great; writing is amazing!,” a passionate 19 year old said as she held on to her pen and notebook, reflecting on her dreams of becoming a writer.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Stephanie Kotsikonas spent her childhood years wondering what she would be when she grew up: an archeologist, a veterinarian, or a forensic anthropologist. “I went through a whole span of things I wanted to be,” adding, “I knew I didn’t want to be stuck behind a cubicle all day!”

Throughout her childhood, Kotsikonas was always writing; it was something she loved to do. “But no one had ever told me I was a good writer,” she said.

“I was lost; I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Kotsikonas said as she reflected on her early years. In the eighth grade, however, she earned a writing award. She brought this skill with her to high school where she worked for the school’s newspaper. “I wrote a running series on the ‘60s,” adding, “I love the ‘60s.” Her passion and skill awarded her yet another writing recognition in high school. “I thought, ‘Maybe I can do something with this,’” Kotsikonas said, coming to the realization that writing is both a skill and a passion of hers.

Kotsikonas’ talent and love for the trade solidified her plans of becoming a writer; she is now pursuing a journalism degree as an honors student at Baruch College. She thrives on the freedom of “literary” and “narrative” writing. “As long as you’re grammatically correct, there are no rules,” she said with a wide smile and sparkle in her eye.

When asked if she has encountered any challenges on her path to becoming a writer, Kotsikonas said, “I am too hard on myself,” adding, “I illogically compare myself to bigger writers.”

Although Kotsikonas is quick to choose “literary” and “narrative” writing as her favorite genres, she also enjoys writing about human rights.

In addition to writing, Kotsikonas said she “love[s] to travel” and has considered a career as a travel writer. After attending Greek school for 7 years as a child, Kotsikonas can now speak and write in the language of her home country. As she completes her journalism degree at Baruch, Kotsikonas hopes to study abroad and is particularly interested in learning German.

“I even know a Beatles song in German!”