Student Ambassadors talk about the Bachelor Degree in Hospitality Management
Last week, we had the pleasure of hosting a webinar with three students from the Bachelor Degree Hospitality Management (BBA). Our Student Ambassadors – Lucie Dardenne (Semester 2, from Belgium) Nathan Ducarme (Semester 6, from Belgium) and Mathilde Christmann (Semester 6, from France) provided detailed information and answered questions about the program structure, the practical arts courses, the internships and the different locations where they studied (Glion, Bulle and London).
Their insights really brought the program to life and highlighted the key advantages of studying hospitality management.
If you’d like to watch the full webinar, which is about an hour long with the Q&A session, you can see it here: https://ispri.ng/yYk6N.
If you prefer to read about the webinar and see what was discussed, some key slides and some quotes are here below. This is part one, we’ll be publishing the next installment next week.
Why choose a Bachelor Degree Hospitality Management?
We started off the discussion by asking the students why they chose to study hospitality and their responses were astoundingly similar:
“I discovered the hospitality industry when I got my first job working in a restaurant, and I loved it right away. I liked serving the guests and the energy of the industry, I also knew it held many possibilities to grow and travel and I knew it was what I wanted to do in my career.” – Nathan
“My first job, a summer job, was in a restaurant and I have always loved hotels and nice restaurants. I discovered that working in the restaurant was fun and challenging and I decided that I’d like to go further and learn more about this industry, then I heard about Glion and it was a perfect match.” – Lucie
“I also discovered hospitality through my first working experience because I did an internship at the Hotel Le Bristol in Paris at the end of my secondary studies and I loved working there. I enjoyed everything about the atmosphere of this nice hotel, greeting guests, working with teams of dynamic, energetic people. It was my ideal working environment.” – Mathilde
A passion for hospitality and all that it encompasses – customer service, multicultural teams, international perspectives, and a dynamic, exciting work environment – is a uniting factor among Glion students and it’s what drives them to pursue a degree in hospitality management, which is a challenging program that demands dedication, openness and a strong work ethic.
Practical Arts – Hand-on Courses in Hotel Management
The foundation of any hospitality management degree is applied learning in hospitality operations. These hands-on courses take place in the simulated hotel environment on Glion campus.
In practical arts courses, students practice food and beverage service in three different types of restaurants, they learn how the kitchen operates, they learn to run a reception and how the rooms division department operates in a hotel.
Lucie, who is just finishing her practical arts courses shared her insights and some photos from her experience:
“Basically, it’s divided into two parts, F&B and Rooms Division. For F&B you’ll be working in service and kitchen. In the first part, you work in service in the three restaurants of the school…the Bellevue, the fine dining restaurnt called Hotel Des Alpes and the Club where we serve asian food and hamburgers. You learn to work in teams, its really imporant. Wou are assigned a team of 5-7 students that you work with throughout the semester. You learn a lot of tricks of the trade, the standards that are expeiceted in the real workd, the instructors come from the industry so they know how it works outside. The second part of F&B is done in the kitchen in the Hotel des Alpes and the Club where we worked with chefs, mainly from France, we learned the different sections – hot section and cold section – and working in our teams we really learned how a kitchen works, how it should be organized, and we enjoyed cooking for our friends in the restaurants. For me the kithcen was the most fun, I really enjoyed it the chefs were really nice and they want to share their passion with you.”
Then we moved to Rooms Division part, in Front Office and Housekeeping. I FO we were in the reception or hte student office we took care of events, e took care of requests from students and guests, the laundry, the booking of classrooms, we really make the whole shcoole work and its where you learn that being at receptionis is not only taking reservations, it making sure the schole school goes well. In housekeeping wecleaned some student rooms and public areas, it sound s abit boring but actually you learn a lot about the standards of the industry and the hygiene and safrety standards. Thats the four areas of AA and it sounds like a lot but it.”
“You don’t see things the same anymore, when you got to a hotel you check the room, you see how eople are working, your view is actually changing from what we did in applied learning.”
Hospitality Internships – Experiencing the real-world Hospitality Industry
After completing the Practical Arts courses, students in the Bachelor Degree Hospitality Management program go on their first internship with the help of the Career and Internship Department at Glion. Nathan Ducarme led this part of the webinar sharing his experience:
“I did my first internship in Hong Kong, I’d never been to Asia before so I decided why not, let’s make a challenge of it and go to Asia. Basically, when we are preparing for internship we have access to a platform where the school promotes positions, and we can also ask other students who have done internships for some advice and which companies or positions re interesting, In my case, I looked on the school portals and sent separate applications to some contacts I collected, I got two interviews and one was successful for the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong.”
Nathan got that position in F&B Cross-Training at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, working in a 2-Michelin starred restaurant. He said:
“The first months were very challenging, I needed to prove my self to my manager and the hours were demanding, I was working 6 days a week. I’ll be honest, it was hard because you’re in a new working environment and there’s a lot of pressure on you, but its a good way to grow as a person as it really challenges you every day… In a Michelin-star restaurant, everything has to be perfect , when you put plates on the table you have to explain everything and know the menu and the dish. some days I was tired and didn’t want to do it anymore, but after six months I feel I really improved as a person, I learned a lot about discipline, about working with different cultures, communicating with teams, respecting your team. It was really a good experience for me.
Stay tuned…
Part 2 of this webinar series is coming soon with the transcribed quotes and highlights about the Management semester, the second internship, the specializations and the London experience.
If you simply can’t wait, watch the rest of the webinar online here: https://ispri.ng/yYk6N (we’re at minute 14.00)or visit our page on the BBA Bachelor Degree in Hospitality Management.
The post Details of the Bachelor Degree in Hospitality Management – Webinar Notes & Video Part 1 appeared first on Glion Blog | Glion Institute of Higher Education.