1856, the in house student teaching restaurant has been a new endeavor for hospitality students to take on. For our classes, we work in the restaurant itself, either in the kitchen with the chefs, or out on the floor as servers, hosts, or expediters. Each week we learn the challenges and the benefits of the restaurant industry and further our experience while strengthening our skills. 

I had the opportunity in one of my classes to model for the schools international presentation that they would be taking with them to recruit international students. It's opportunities and small things like that, that don't just happen everyday, but can come with being a part of this program.

Pictured above: My peers and I alongside Chef Antony, Chef Tom Baco Wang and the President of Auburn, Christopher Roberts

Pictured Below: Myself and another student with our Master Sommelier Thomas Price

On the top of the new culinary science building, there is a hotel and a rooftop garden. Along with working hands on in the restaurant, we get to work hand on in the hotel as well. For our lodging operations class, we follow around the staff of the hotel and gain knowledge of how the hotel operates day to day. 

On the rooftop, the School of Horticulture also gets to participate in the hands on learning. All of the vegetables, flowers, and plants in the garden have all been planted and are taken care of by those students.

When it comes to classes, our school is anything but lacking in hands on experience and immersive classes.

Our most creative and exciting class to date, is our Catering and Event Management class. As a senior, we take our knowledge from the previous 3 years in event management classes and we put those skills to the test to plan the yearly Auburn Hospitality Gala.

As a group, we were tasked with pitching color schemes, linen choices, and floral/decor inspiration and then debating and discussing to make our final decisions. We were individually tasked with reaching out to companies and brands to inquire about donations for our silent and live auction and then putting together packages with our acquired donations.

I was part of the floral team and spent the week leading up to the gala putting together table arrangements, creating an arch that would be covered in flowers the night of, three stage arrangements, and a backdrop for the photo booth.

Pictured below are the arrangements, me and my fellow event planner friends the night of and all of our hard work that finally came to fruition!

In our Facilities Management class, we learn the importance of the behind the scenes of running a business. Whether it be the structural and safety aspects of the building your business is in or how your staff takes care of and services all of the facilities in your building, this class teaches it all.

We are given a group project to complete where we create our own facility and map out the floor plan while also breaking down specific details of the facilities we would use in our facility. My groups project is shown below.

My focus in the hospitalty school is Event Management, so I would have to say that I do get most excited for those classes. In my most recent event class, our final project was to help coordinate a meet and greet event that would allow students to come together to meet the dean of the hospitality school.

We called it Dogs with the Dean!

We went through all the steps of planning by splitting up into groups based on different aspects of the planning process and collaborated in class on how to execute the event successfully.

My group was Anticipation, meaning that we focused on the time leading up to the event. We created the graphics that would be sent out and displayed to advertise and market our event. Shown below is our original graphic and our final graphic.

The following photos are the day of the event with the whole team and the dean in attendance!