IUP helps aspiring foodservice manager

Christopher Hindman

Pittsburgh Standard

My experience at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) as a student in the Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management Program (HRIM) was an experience that prepared me well to enter the hospitality industry as a foodservice manager.

Also, this experience is something that was very valuable to me, and the knowledge and experience that I gained while completing this program is something that will remain with me for my many years of employment in the foodservice industry.

As a student in the HRIM program at IUP, a student has the option to concentrate their studies on either hotel management or restaurant and institutional foodservice management.

The section that I chose to concentrate on was the food service and institutional management concentration of the HRIM program.

The reason that I chose the foodservice side of the HRIM program to concentrate on is because I enjoy working with people, doing things that make people come back and visit a place time after time again.

I also had an interest in the institutional side of foodservice management, and had the dream that someday I would work in an institutional setting such as healthcare or school foodservice. Because I enjoy challenges, by working in the foodservice industry, I will be able to tackle the daily challenges of a foodservice operation as well as finding new and exciting ways to attract and retain customers to the foodservice operation that I manage.

As for the courses that I took at IUP, I feel that these courses also prepared me well for employment as a manager in the foodservice industry. At IUP, all students are required to complete fifty-seven credits of general education requirements for graduation in courses such as English, Math, and Social Sciences etc. My opinion of these courses is that they are beneficial to my employment as a foodservice manager because they help me keep basic skills such as reading, writing synthesizing, and thinking critically sharp, and also help one to keep a cultural perspective on the country, and the world that we live in today.

When looking at the courses I took for the HRIM major, I definitely feel that these courses prepared me well to enter the foodservice industry. There are several reasons that I give this high opinion, and will explain my reasons below.

First, as a student in the HRIM program at IUP, you learn skills that are very valuable and helpful when working as a manager in the foodservice industry. Some of these skills are working in teams with other persons, learning to deal with a person whose working style is different from your own, and dealing with conflicts that may arise when working with a team of people as well. This skill is essential because when you work as a manager in a foodservice operation, you work with two or three other people to function as a management team, and learning these skills in school is a great help when you enter the working world of the foodservice industry.

Second, while in the HRIM program at IUP, I learned about human resources, accounting, design of foodservice facilities, catering, nutrition, food and beverage management, marketing, learned a second language, and how to design a foodservice or hotel establishment.

When reading this article, one may think that the only thing I did at IUP was to sit in a classroom and listen to lectures. However, this is something that is definitely not true at all. In addition to learning about these things, I was able to apply the concepts to several projects that I completed while I was a student at IUP.

Some of these projects included: designing a foodservice establishment from the ground up- land, building materials, working with a group to plan two elegant theme dinners for a class, researching, and writing about human resources topics, planning and carrying catered functions, and operating a restaurant in the HRIM building as a course to learn about food cost and labor cost.

The third reason why I feel that the HRIM program at IUP prepared me well to enter the foodservice industry is because IUP requires every student in the HRIM program to complete a six credit internship course at a students choice of hospitality location.

The location I chose for my internship was a resort located in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. My reason for liking the internship program requirement is because it gives a student who will be entering the hospitality workforce in a short period of time a realistic look at what to expect when entering hospitality industry after graduation.

Also, my internship was a great experience for me not only because I got to spend my summer in a major tourist spot, but also because I really got to know and become familiar with how the resort section of the hospitality industry operates.

And, the final reason why I feel the HRIM program at IUP prepared me well to enter the hospitality industry as a working professional is that I was given an education that thoroughly educated me in the hospitality industry, encouraged and developed my skills to think critically and analytically in solving problems, and it was an education that gave me a greater appreciation of the world that I live in, as well as those that make up the world that I live in on a daily basis.

Express Your View