About to chop some basil with my newly learned knife skills!
Presenting my salad in front of our panel of judges
All of the salads we created were delicious and completely different from one another. Ultimately Marie's salad won, but Niki's was only behind by half a point! Below are our creations:
Romaine lettuce with pineapple, avocado, red peppers, and coconut crusted chicken with a pina colada dressing
Spring mix with peaches, candied pecans, goat cheese, red onion, and lemon basil chicken with a honey vinaigrette
Since Marie's salad won, the final luncheon will feature her salad and the theme and rest of the menu will be built around the salad. In much of our free time these last two weeks, we have been working on finalizing everything for the luncheon.
Later that week we went to Shaver's Creek, which is an environmental center with hiking, kayaking, and animal exhibits. Here we did some team bonding exercises to prepare us for working on our final projects as a team.
Maria hooked us up with the marketing department to get a look at some of the rebranding Penn State is doing for some of its retail locations. While there, one of the photographers took us to the arboretum to take professional head shots.
We took a cheesy family portrait because we are basically a family now
For our final four weeks of the internship we get to take part in a management rotation. During this rotation we shadow various managers and assistant managers at the different dining commons on campus. Our mentors show us their normal work routines and explain to us all the details of their responsibilities as a manager. Our first manager that we shadowed was Kevin, an assistant manager at Pollock Dining Commons. He is in charge of breakfast and lunch shifts so we had an early start at 5am! When we first started for the day, Kevin showed us how to open up the building and set up the dining hall for breakfast. We also got to sit in in a managers meeting that they hold before every shift. Kevin also is in charge of one of the convenient stores located in Pollock called "The Mix". This store was under construction at the time and he was working hard to open it back up as soon as possible. We got to assist him in taking inventory for the store - which included all of the inventory in the -3 degree freezer. BRR!
The next mentor we shadowed was Jamie, who is also an assistant manager at Pollock Dining Commons. Jamie took the time to explain to us the in's and out's of FoodPro, which is a system that Penn State uses to order food. Jamie also let us shadow some of the student managers for a lunch shift. It was interesting to see how important the roles of the student managers are to make the shift run smoothly and efficiently.
After our time at Pollock Dining Commons, we shifted over to Redifer Dining Commons to shadow another assistant manager, Steve. Steve went through the union contract and explained how Penn State employees follow the handbook. We also got to be in the front of the house and work as cashiers and supervisors.
We only have one week left! Look out for our last blog post!
-Marie and Niki
No comments:
Post a Comment