Educating for Justice Gala

Hey everyone! Ahh its been a while! I hope your semesters are all going great and your midterms are moving along well =)

I've been starting to get stressed myself with all the work! Balancing 6 classes and student council is not as "alright, I can do it all" as I thought at first.. Haha time management has definitely the key thing that's helping me out now. But I do tend to slack at times =( Not the time to do so, especially during midterms time!

Anyway ,the purpose of this blog post is to tell you about an extraordinary event I attended last Thursday night. John Jay College held an "Educating for Justice Gala" I was invited by Ms. Vielka Holness of the Pre-law Institute, and I was definitely glad that I attended! The event was held in honor of a phenomenal company and individual; IBM Smarter Cities Initiative and Frederick "Fritz" A.O. Schwartz, Jr. and inn celebration of the IBM smart classrooms. "We honor them because they share a commitment to improving the way government works to promote justice and improve the safety of New Yorkers and others around the country and the globe" (President Travis).

Last year, IBM launched a nation wide program called Smarter Cities which was desighned to assist cities incorporate intelligence into the way they go about their everyday life.
The night started with a brief meet-and-greet in the theater lobby of the T-Building. Students, faculty, government officials, honorary guests, members of the board of trustees and many more were in attendence to get to know each other and the networking opportunies were endless! After the meet-and-greet session among everyone, we all headed into the lobby where President Travis addressed all the guests and a powerpoint about IBM Smarter Cities was shown. There were a few honorary guests who spoke and introduced themselves to the audience. During the middle of his presentation, President Travis took a break and musician, Predro Pablo Marinez came on stage to perform with his band. From the reaction of the audience, it was clear that I wasn't the only one who enjoyed the performance and extremely impressed with them! After they performed, President Travis resumed with his remarks.

When he was done, everyone headed to the 4th floor gym for dinner. BELIEVE ME when I tell you, the 4th floor gym looked AMAZING. Haha and I mean amazing! I have never seen it like this. It looked completely transformed. The lights were dimmed to look like an actual restaurant, the table arrangements were beautiful and the food was phenomenal! The rest of the dinner was filled with great food, good conversation, amazing people. This night was such a beautiful night, and I cannot be more happy that I went! That was my night at the, Educating for Justice Gala and it was a great celebration for the IBM Smarter Cities program!

Also on a side note, there is a learning communities showcase on December 2nd. For all the freshmans/faculty/interested student that will be participating or attending this semester, I'll be stopping by for a little bit. I hope to meet some of you there! =)