Getting involved!

Hello Everyone! This is officially my first blog entry and I hope that everyone enjoys following with my life at Berkeley College. I will start off with a small introduction of myself. My name is Aleksandra, and I am from Wanaque, NJ. I am majoring in business marketing and currently I am attending the Garret Mountain campus. I have recently switched from being a management major to marketing because after I have taken a marketing class for my first time I realized that I was much more interesting in that subject. Not only is it more interesting to me, but I have realized that its hard to go into a management position right out of college since many people look for experience. I was born and raised in Europe (Poland) and I came to America when I was 10 years old. Berkeley College is a very diverse school, and there are many people that you can relate to since they are from all around the world as well. I am an only child, but I do have a dog named Blue. He is a very hyper Siberian Husky! I work in a physical therapy office, as reception and it is a nice job to get me through college. I also do...Blogging!

My last quarter of school was very hectic and I felt that I couldn't catch up with anything. All my professors were giving extreme amounts of work, and it was hard to keep up. I definitely learned to manage my time well, and learned how to get it all done. That quarter was a killer, but I definitely believe that it was a beneficial one since now whenever I get any work now, its not so bad since I have had to do so much more last time. One professor was giving me essay papers that had to be six pages typed single-spaced! Not to mention all that had to be done in one week. So now, whenever I get a paper that's due in a week and it has to be three pages double spaced its like nothing. This quarter though it is a lot easier than my last one. You can never predict what it will be like until you are there.

Since my last quarter was crazy, now I feel that I have so much extra time on my hands! Because of that I decided to get involved. I wanted to put some meaning in my life and make things more interesting since my life consisted of school and work. I was determined to make a change, and hopefully be the change. I joined the international business club at the college. I wanted to run for the treasurer of the club, but got bumped up to be the vice president. I was very happy about that because that's what I wanted to be originally, but the position was taken.

We are currently planning on an international food day. We want to cook food for the school because as I have mentioned before there is a very large variety of nationalities in this school. We will cook food from different countries and then sell the food to make money to treat ourselves later on. We are thinking of going to six flags but it has not been decided yet.

Last week all the international business classes as well as the international business club was invited to go to the United Nations but unfortunately we had a huge snow storm on Wednesday and the trip was on Thursday morning. Some people still went, but I wasn't feeling too safe going to the city right after a snow storm on a bus so I did not end up going. I will ask around how it went though to let you guys know. Berkeley College definitely gives you plenty of opportunities to do things, be involved and learn.

About two weeks ago I went on a Leadership Retreat with some other students to Baltimore, MD. To this day I cannot believe how many people I have met, how many friends I have made and how fun it was. The leadership retreat was for students who want to make a change and get involved to make the school a more fun, creative and a good learning experience. I believe fifteen students were picked to go from each campus. We stayed at a beautiful hotel about five minutes from the harbor, great meals that consisted of steak, salmon, chicken, lasagna, etc, and of course, free time for ourselves! Our day started at 8am when we had to go down for breakfast. Around 9:30am we usually started our programs. We spoke about changes we would like to make, how to improve the college, about our experiences of how we got to college and our other accomplishments, and how we can change things around us for the better. Some thoughts were deep and very emotional for many students. We got to meet the Berkeley College president. She was so down to earth and fun to talk to. She listed to our opinions, spoke to us about her life and how she became what she is, and it really felt like she wanted to help us. I was glad I got to meet her because in most universities and colleges you never get to see your president yet alone talk to them!

On our activities we got to bond with other students and play fun leadership games. One game that was my favorite was getting in a large group, everyone holds someone’s hand in the circle, and then we work together to try and untangle ourselves. It was a lot of laughs, fall downs, team work, and determination. My team may not have won but it was still fun, and we had fifteen people on our team! On our last day we had been presented with a challenge of putting on a play with groups of five or six, of how to and how not to recruit people for clubs. Some teams were very hilarious. My group decided to do a play of a courtroom where we charge people for stealing our idea of recruitment. The guy who was the prosecutor was obsessed with P Diddy and kept pretending to be him which many people eventually found annoying but funny at the same time. I think after a while it got kind of old. I think everyone did a good job in their own way.

We had this one ridicules policy where if an activity began at 2pm, and we were late even thirty seconds, you had to get in front of the group, which was about 70 people, and sing, dance, or perform a talent in order to gain apology for being late! Of course since the hotel had terrible elevators I was late and had to do something. Fortunately I was late with a dean from a different campus so we did a duet! Of course sitting in a room wasn't all we did on our trip. We were let out of our activities at about 5:30 and dinner was at 6. After that we were free to do whatever we pleased. I will not mention EVERYTHING that was going on, and but lets just say everyone had a great time. We went out to the harbor despite the freezing weather, went to some clubs, and tried to make the best of everything we did.

Saying goodbye was hard for everyone because we have all bonded with each other and became really good friends. The president of the college told us she was really proud of us and she felt like a proud mama. This made us happy because we knew that we must be doing something right. The ride home amazed me because on our way there people kept to themselves most of the time since they didn't know that many people, but on the way back it was so rowdy and happy that it put a smile on everyone face. Before we left we were sitting on the bus and saw a guy get attacked by pigeons because he was feeding them. I guess they really wanted all the food! Oh we got free t-shirts too!

Saying goodbye was hard but hopefully I will be on that bus again next year. Well, its time for me to head to class since I am typing this in the library on a laptop. Till next time.... Here are some pictures from the Baltimore trip...


http://berkeleycollege.edu/blogs/images/Akopec_Pics/feb07/pic1.jpg http://berkeleycollege.edu/blogs/images/Akopec_Pics/feb07/pic2.jpg http://berkeleycollege.edu/blogs/images/Akopec_Pics/feb07/pic3.jpg