Thursday, August 20, 2009,
Baruch College - City University of New York
I had never attended school orientations as I always assumed that I wouldn't like it. But this time, the choice is not up to me. I attended my first
(mandatory) orientation on 20th August '09 at Baruch College - The City University of New York. As of today, I know for a fact that I indeed hate orientations. Don't get me wrong there, the school was great and all but the nature of the event itself, just never appealed to me. Therefore I went through with the process reluctantly.
Awkwardness. This seemingly familiar feeling I had grew accustomed to through my years of not wanting to be socially inclined. Yet it felt so different this time. Sitting in that room amongst hundreds of other individuals made me felt uneasy. Somehow I had never being so out of place. While I was just sitting there, I can't help but to notice how contrastive from me these people are. Both physically and mentally. From things like their hair color, dress sense or even their eye colors to their language, culture, background and mentality. It was then I finally realised that I am in another place now, attempting to live a different life, struggling to fit into this incognizant environment. Life has displaced.
There were a lot of time wasting as I'd expected. The orientation officially began with a surprise, for me at least! A 300 page novel called Reservation Blues (by Sherman Alexie) was given out, following with an announcement that it will be up for group discussion the following week, exactly 7 days from the day of orientation. And to top that off, a vast majority of the students were given Reservation Blues weeks prior to their orientation when they attended their summer course at Baruch. Right now I just hope that it's going to be somewhat a good read.
The Dean made his officially addressed the students and ended his speech with a pretty impressive quote,
"Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words.
Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions.
Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits.
Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character.
Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny."
With that, it concludes the first half of the morning.
The next half of the morning introduced us to a 35 minutes writing assessment.
Topic: Do you think the American Society emphasis too much on winning as the only measure of success? Agree or disagree?
Which also reminds me that on Tuesday, 18th August '09, the topic for the writing test was, "Write a letter to the school board stating that if you think it would be more beneficial for the students to have a few three-to-four months breaks or the existing summer block holiday. State and explain how your choice would benefit the students with their school life as well as their personal life." As always, I struggled through these essays, have my fingers crossed that my scores would turn up satisfactory.
The last half of the morning was spent lazily in the computer lab, listening to facts about the courses which was pretty much covered during the online orientation programme and us facebooking away, me randomly updating my pessimistic perspective of my orientation day. Fetched quite a fair bit of response there thou.
Lunch.
The day continued on with another hour of listening to a motivational speaker about how to plan our future and such. Then it was another computer lab session.
What may be interesting though was that I made a friend. An Indian friend, born and raised in New York, Brooklyn if i did so remembered correctly. We shared views on how ignorant americans can be, with their heads held high and living in their own little world. He's seventeen. one way or another, I just seems to make younger friends by the year. We had a few laughs when the computer technician walked in. He bore a striking resemblance to Harold, from the movies Harold and Kumar. He spoke with a strong chinese-english accent and of all people, I was the one snickering at the back of the class. Ironic.
It was not so much of a fun nor an enriching day but I guess I made the best out of it. Well, to bring justice to the school, the campus outlook is sleek and modern, equipped with some of the best facilities you could possible find in a city state university. Some of the faculty members were very kind and helpful, and some of them were a little mean. All in all, I think I am going to grow to like this school. And with time I'll fit in. It is just a matter of time, this much I know (or maybe I will be totally outcasted).
Who would have thought? I got acquainted.
Labels: Baruch College/CUNY
