Internship in Nevada Restaurants Association Essay Example for Free

Internship in Nevada Restaurants Association Essay Having a successful career after studying is one of the aspirations of many college students. However, facing a real scenario in a corporate world seems to be very challenging and for some, it can be frightening. That is why internship programs are included in college courses to show the real world associated with the profession to the students and to prepare them by requiring them to work in a company of their choice. For my case, I took internship at Nevada Restaurant Association, an organization that focuses on managing various events and activities associated with hotel and restaurant management. As an HRM institution, Nevada Restaurant Organization has a goal of rendering world class hotel and restaurant services to valued customers. For them, customer satisfaction is very important because it measures the level of their performance. To accomplish their goals, NRA exhibits various ways of rendering high quality hotel services, safety food provision and high standard accommodation. The most important thing about NRA is that they recruit members in their organization for the goal of helping others and sharing their knowledge with them. Seminars, trainings and exhibits are done in a regular basis to continuously help aspirants and hone them into globally competitive HRM professionals (NRA 1). Since I am still an intern student and my knowledge about the industry is still limited, the management gave me basic tasks in the organization. As an intern, my basic tasks are to assist the events team in managing events and seminars like high school cooking competition, food preparation seminars and other activities related to hotel and restaurant management. I also do administrative works like preparation of seminar kits, modules and other things needed for the events. Most of the time, I assist the director of the organization in conference room meetings by means of preparing the room and the materials needed by the director and the participants. Even though my tasks are basic, for me they are very challenging because it tests not only my knowledge about my career but also my behavior towards work and other people. I can say that by being an intern in Nevada Restaurant Association, I am able to apply what I have learned from my subjects and learn new things at the same time. As a hospitality management major, my everyday tasks and interaction with my coworkers and a lot people outside the organization enhanced my skills and made me appreciate my profession more than how I appreciated it when I am still starting my course. As an example, the things that I have learned in my Facilities Management, Marketing and Finance subjects helped me in effectively preparing and organizing events and seminars. By assisting the team in using the available resources in an optimal way, I was able to help the entire organization in attaining cost effective processes that aided them in rendering high class services to participants. On the other hand, my knowledge in Service Management and Career Development subjects aided me in dealing with the people in the organization and with the participants in all the events that I have organized and attended. I know that it is through effective communication and respective approach that I will be able to apply my hospitality skills in my career. Among all the subjects that I have taken, it is Service Management that aided a lot n preparing me for my career. It is because I believe that a large part of Hospitality Management deals more on the services rendered. It is on how the services are organized and implemented that customer satisfaction is garnered. The food, drinks and other visual products of the service only serve as tangible proofs but beyond that, it is the kind of service that make people say that â€Å"it has a global quality†. Thus, it is very important that the skills and potentials required for rendering service is developed and enhanced. During the internship, I treated my managers and my coworkers as my customers and as a service provider, I did my best and used my skills and talents in rendering services that will give them utmost satisfaction. That is by obeying instructions, by doing tasks the right way and the way they wanted it and by completing requested works on or even ahead of time. In that way, I was able to practice how to render high quality services to other people. When I entered Nevada Restaurant Association as an intern, the management had an agreement that I will be spending 200 hours working in the organization. We also agreed that no amount will be paid for the internship and I will be working in the company until I completed the 200 hours. Perhaps for some people, 200 hours of work maybe hard especially to those who have no interest in their job. Yet, for me, 200 hours work seemed to be not enough. It is because for me, there is a lot to learn about the company and I, as a very aspiring person want to learn all the things that I can learn about the company. For me, it is the learning and the experiences that encouraged me to have enough strength to work on my tasks and be utmost motivated to prepare myself for my profession. In my own point of view, working in Nevada Restaurant Association is a big challenge for me. First of all, it is my first time to work with professional people and second, it is also my first time to apply the skills that I have learned in school in the real world. I admit that I felt the pressure of my work. There are times during my first days in work that I doubted if my work is good enough to satisfy them and if it will meet the standards set by my managers. Like any other person, I do not want, as much as possible, to fail in my work and receive negative feedbacks from my managers. It is true that at first, I thought that my job is difficult but I realized, as days went by that what I was doing was fun. I realized that the pressure is just there because it is my first time. Later on as my work get clearer and clearer for me, I realized that I am blessed because I was given the opportunity to work in a prestigious organization. In my entire stay in the company, I felt the enjoyment and fun of working with various people, meeting new acquaintances and establishing new contacts. Most of all, I learned one of the most important lessons, that failure is a key to success. As a fresh intern, I admit that I also made some mistakes in my work and my managers usually pointed it out. Though it is sometimes frustrating especially if I have already exerted too much effort to finish the job, I realized that it is my failures in my work that pushed me to do better and be more deserving for my profession. I realized that if I really want to learn, I should learn to be patient enough to continuously try my best to make my work better. Mistakes are not there to discourage me but they are there to direct me to my potential improvements. I learned that as a person full of aspirations, I should not focus on my mistakes and instead, I should focus on what my managers are telling me because they are the ones who know better than I do and they can direct me to my improvement. By keeping that in my mind, I was able to make my tasks a lot easier, fun, and enjoyable. The pressure that I felt during my first days disappeared as I learned to love my job and seek learning from it. I think that it is my positive outlook in life that I am able to transform the pressure into motivation and burning aspiration to finish my intern and keep what I have learned until the time that I need to apply it again. In addition, the organization’s culture taught me important things that helped me to be a better person. First of all, I learned to be a competitive person in a creative way that showcased my talents and abilities. Since the organization aimed for producing skillful, world class and competitive students and trainees, I, as an intern has adopted this behavior and I was able to apply it in my everyday life. For me, this behavior is very essential because I believe that when I enter the real world after graduating from college, I will be facing a lot of people who may have the same skills that I have and in order for me to get accepted, I must stand out from the rest by being competitive in the best that I can be. In accordance with the culture of the company, I also experience a lot of good things in the company. Even though I am just an intern, my coworkers did not treat me as one and in fact, they treated me as their coworker already. They have shown me the appropriate respect, encouragement and motivation. Although authority is there, their attitude of being friendly and very open gave me the comfort and confidence of getting along with them and voicing out my side during meetings and or brainstorming. The light and stress-free atmosphere motivated me to work harder and be better and better everyday. Their advice served as my guiding principles during my stay and it really helped me a lot in accomplishing my job. Most of all, the most important thing that I learned from the organization and that I think I will never forget is the act of sharing. As an organization, Nevada Restaurant Association believes that the ultimate responsibility of all hotel and restaurant employees is to render their customers with world class services. In order to achieve that quality, they must share their knowledge with each other and aimed for the same goal. For them, being competitive is not about winning over other people but showcasing the best talents a person has. Nevada Restaurant Association believes that by helping each other, by sharing ideas and by teaching it to those who are willing to learn that the entire community of hotel and restaurant employees will be able to completely render high quality and world class services. It is through sharing of ideas that integration of little but talented ideas can happen to be able to establish an excellent strategy that will deliver utmost customer satisfaction and that will benefit everyone in the industry. My internship in Nevada Restaurant Association is really one of the best experiences that I have in my life and I am willing to apply what I have learned in my future career to be able to help other people and contribute in enriching the industry that I am in. References: NRA. (2007). Nevada Restaurant Association. Available at: http://www. nvrestaurants. com/