A First Impression

Today was the start of my classes. Eric, Rachel, and I walked down to the Statler Building to start our first day of summer college. When we entered, there was name tags for assigned seats, and I sat in the edge of the class. The class was quite large, with exactly 81 students. It felt like a college class because no one was goofing off during the beginning of class.

The course went on from 8:30 to 4:00, with a lunch break in between for an hour and a half. Our professors, Mrs. and Mr. McCarthy were very funny. They would occasionally make jokes to entertain the class a bit. After a brief introduction of the hospitality industry, The class separated into two sections, sections A and B. Section A went to the computer room, and being in B, I was in the classroom. I sat next to two students named Tiffany Chung and David Li. We had to stand up and introduce each other to the class. It was a fun experience and they were very nice. After we finished, our section went to the computer rooms to take a survey. It was a behavior survey which allowed Mr. McCarthy sort us in groups to work with. I was a persuader-stabilizer, which meant that I showed empathy towards people.

After that, we had lunch and continued our lecture. We had a brief lecture of the history of hotels. We learned about franchises and how they made money. Some hotels only franchise, while others manage their own, and don't do franchising, like the Four Seasons. It was, I admit, long, but I was able to last through it without feeling drowsy.

After dinner, I walked back to the Statler Building and began messing around with CHESS, which stands for Competitive Hospitality Education Simulation Series I. CHESS is a simulation that basically represents a real life hotel. It was very interesting trying out the stimulation. There were a lot of gadgets to help adjust the hotel's spending. Everyone just experimented with it and it was nice to have that preview.

The class didn't seem as bad as I had imagined. Of course, this was just an introduction day to get to know everyone. The real journey begins tomorrow.