A Successful Internship Session: Experiencing Real-World Restaurant Settings

1. Describe what you accomplished at your internship this week. Be specific in describing the knowledge you have gained and the skills you have developed. What objective(s) on your Customized Learning Agreement does this satisfy? * Experience in restaurants, buffet, in-room dining

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The internship session for this week was successful where all the planned practical lessons were covered as outlined in the internship program guide. Applying knowledge learned in class in a real-world setting was fantastic. I learned a lot while interacting with customers and managers. First of all, I gained managerial skills while carrying out managerial tasks while being a team leader. During the week I was given the responsibility to lead my fellow interns in carrying out the various tasks like cleaning dining rooms, preparing meals and attending to customers. I learned to be honest and responsible in my work as a leader (Negi & Manoher, 2009).

Secondly, I learned to prepare different meal types I never knew how to before for instance, I learned how to prepare hot dog as well as pizza. My cooking skills also improved in terms of speed and precision in areas like timing and measurement of ingredients. I now know how to prepare meals with a specific type of nutrients. I learned that different age groups require different special supplements for better health (Rajat et al., 2010).

While serving as an attendant, I leaned etiquette and discipline on how to handle clients. This time around I learned that customer is always right and needs to be treated nicely so and to motivate even others to buy from the restaurant. I found out that, I need to be polite to customers and listening keenly to all details while a customer is ordering for any sort of meal.

The objective of hospitality and management course is to prepare individuals with outstanding knowledge on offering services in hotels or restaurants and anywhere else hospitality services are needed (Gaol, 2014).

2. Discuss a difficult, challenging and/or awkward situation you faced at your internship and describe how you handled it. What have you learned from this experience? * The customer is always right.

Like any other job, hospitality management job has challenges and as a professional, you have to learn how to encounter them. A guest ordered a meal and after seconds of tasting the meal, they wanted to exchange the meal for something else. This was really a challenge and I had to politely talk to the customer and discover the reason why the customer needed the meal to be exchanged. This scenario taught me to be humble and always to be ready to listen to customer needs (Carmouche & Kelly, 2015).

3. Evaluate your job performance to date as an intern. What are your strengths? How can you * improve your performance?

My performance has improved a lot while I was on my internship, I can now carry out my job in a more professional way. I can now serve customers without any problem, document all necessary details for room booking and solve problems in a mature way with professionalism

During my internship, I noticed that one of my strengths is dedication in my work. I am dedicated to offering services to customers willingly. Also, I am passionate about my job and I would like to work hard to achieve my dream of Managing a 5-star restaurant. I can improve my performance by studying more on managerial skills. By doing this I will be confident that I can serve in a managerial position without much struggle. Also, it will be of good help to learn different but common languages like French and German so that I can communicate fluently with customers who are not good in the English language (Negi & Manoher, 2009).

4. What have you learned about yourself and your work style since you began your internship?

I learned that my communication skills are good and I do uphold discipline while attending to customers. I can handle customers with bad moods or those who may not have good morals instilled in them.

5. Are you still interested in pursuing a career in this field? Why or why not?

I have an interest in pursuing a hospitality management career in future reason being that, I enjoy serving people always. I have always had a passion for hotel management especially holding any managerial position in a restaurant setup (Carmouche & Kelly, 2015).

References

Carmouche, R., & Kelly, N. (2015). Behavioural Studies in Hospitality Management. Andover, England: Cengage Learning Emea.

Gaol, F. L., Mars, W., & Saragih, H. (2014). Management and Technology in Knowledge, Service, Tourism & Hospitality. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Negi, P. J., & Manoher, G. (2009). Hospitality Management. Laxmi Publications.

Rajat Gupta; Nishant Singh; Ishita Kirar & Mahesh Kumar Bairwa. (2010). Hospitality & Tourism Management. New Delhi, India: Vikas Publishing House.