Back from midterm break!!!

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Pamela Calvas

The time has passed so fast and unfortunately I have not been able to keep up with my blogs as usual, the school really has kept us quite busy with assignments and midterm exams! I will compensate with some important information, fun stories and events at Les Roches that I have been collecting in the last few weeks for those of you who are interested in the student life at the school.

Midterm break really was a breath of fresh air allowing us to continue with school assignments and lessons. As I have stated before, the teaching system at Les Roches evaluates the performance of students in several ways and some projects require you to put all your effort and integrate the knowledge you have of all subjects. Examples of these are the so-called IP projects.

But what is IP? It stands for Integrated Project and although it is not a very popular term among first year students it is all you will hear among people from third year (H03) and postgraduate students (like me) just before the midterm break! After it has been submitted, there are only a few exams or projects left et voila! The ambiance at the school changes as everyone gets ready to leave for midterm break! Bellow just some random pictures of some of my friends after those long study hours at school haha!

Now, passing to a more interesting topic, I wanted to talk about internships. As we all know, here at Les Roches, internships should be done after the completion of a course.

Depending on the program that you are following, the school encourages you to get work experience in hospitality related establishments in order for you to apply all the techniques learned at the school into real work situations according to a specific hospitality area that draws your interest the most.

Within any hospitality related establishment there are endless opportunities for students from our school to participate, learn and get professional and life experiences which in the near future might be highly valued by an employer. Besides, you never know what abilities you are capable of and some new talents might surface as you progress in your internship.

The options are endless for you to find your new location in the world; from a 5 star hotel in a cosmopolitan city in Europe, to an exotic beach resort in Southeast Asia or even a ski resort in the mountains of Switzerland, there really are no limits as long as you keep an eye on immigration regulations and more specifically into the requirements that recruiters are looking for. You have to get informed about where you are going and a new blog post will be informing you more about it next week.

For now, I would like to share with you an interview with Johanne Fremmich, current H02 student at Les Roches who gladly agreed to give us feedback about her internship experience. We wanted to find out how involved she was with her role as a trainee at the Hotel Arts Barcelona and as you will see, the results are great and she loved her experience!

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Wine Tasting Festival

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Pamela Calvas

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all having a great week and working hard in your projects/assignments either if you are a current student from Les Roches, part of the Alumni or even a prospective student reading this blog!!

On my side, I can tell you that I feel like time is definitely flying already and as deadlines are approaching I feel the need to work faster and harder. The Hospitality industry is known for this and it is in fact one of the reasons why I selected this field because it has helped me to become more organized and manage time better.

Having said that, I strongly agree that along with the learning, it is always important to have time to learn new things, attend workshops, presentations and see places where they show something new or important from a particular region.

Last Saturday, we had a great opportunity to go to the Sierre Wine Festival, which was a really nice experience for all of us who had never tried wine tasking before. The festival took place in Sierre, which is one of the closest cities to Bluche where Les Roches campus is located. Sierre has about 14,000 inhabitants and in the city you can do some shopping in the many stores, or find restaurants and banks. When you are a student in Bluche, you go there often.

Every year, Sierre becomes the host of the Wine Festival which is really popular in the Valaisan area; for many people foreign and local, it becomes really interesting as several wine makers come to this festival with their products, people attending can pay a small fee for the wine tasting and you receive a wine glass which becomes your tool to try several sorts of wines made by the different grapes produced in the area. The producers from vineyards from the region are happy to explain to you where they are located and if there is any specialty in their wine. It was really interesting!

Check out how it was in the following video where I have posted a few pictures of this day!

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Hitting the Halfway Mark

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Whitney

The month of August has been filled with ups and downs.

For the first two weeks of the month the hotel was extremely busy with just about 100% occupancy and what is normally a quiet, calm place became a bustling hive of activity. As part of my internship package, I stay in one of the rooms of the hotel (I am one of the lucky ones) and because the hotel was so full I spent about 5 days staying in a different room every night and one night off property which was kind of fun but at the end I was glad to be settled in one place.

My major project of this month was to create a presentation on Breakages. At Les Roches when we break things (once I saw a whole stack of plates go down in Market Place) we get reprimanded and told to clean up the mess and life goes on. It changes a bit when the cost of the equipment you’re using is related to the expenses of the department and the profit of your employer and maybe even your staff evaluation at the end of the year. So my task was to make this presentation to see why our team was breaking so much and how we could try to fix those issues.

Cambodia Travels

We had a kind of Management Retreat which I was invited to join. I have to say that it is amusing to watch your managers, who would normally be well dressed in shirts sleeves and black trousers, wearing sports gear and jumping around with a badminton racket and playing volleyball. After we played sports we drove out to East Baray.

A Baray is a manmade lake and this one is part of the complex of Angkor Wat, it is not certain whether they were made for symbolic reasons only or if they were used for irrigation as well. We had lunch on the rice fields and spent a lovely afternoon eating and resting in hammocks.

Baray

The Rice Fields where we had lunch

Local Food

I also had the chance to visit Happy Ranch Horse Farm. It was almost like home and I loved sitting around playing with the horses and dogs and chatting with the stable hands (although I’m not sure they understood any of what I was saying).

www.thehappyranch.com

However, towards the end of the month, near to the 3 month mark I started feeling down. Internships are a lot of fun and can be very exciting but that doesn’t stop you from missing home. It isn’t as though you want to go home immediately but I realized that the whole summer had passed and I, for the first time, was not there with all my friends who were on break. It is something to think about when you choose your internship. As my grandmother would say, it’s “character building”!

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Meeting Les Roches’ Alumni

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Pamela Calvas

So, it is time for an update! The weather has been quite good the last couple of weeks and many activities have been happening lately at the school, I was thinking that this time I would try to summarize a little of what has been going on in the student life, on and off campus.

First of all I would like to mention the successful Alumni meeting that took place last Sunday, on the 20th of August. During this meeting, students from Les Roches were able to interact with the Les Roches Alumni in a Grand Reunion with Les Roches graduates from years 1990 to 1995. These Alumni meetings have been arranged previously but this was the first time only graduates from these years gathered and came to the campus to interact with us. This was a great opportunity for all of us who wanted to find out more about how the opportunities of having studied in Les Roches helped them to enter the real world of hospitality.

Mr. Nicholas Allen, a Les Roches graduate from 1992, and a group of Les Roches Alumni came up with this great idea, along with the help provided by the Les Roches Alumni representatives and the CDIP office (the Career Development and Industry Placement).

We all had a wonderful time accompanied by nice food and soft drinks by the school pool on this Sunday afternoon. Getting acquainted with former students who are now managers of hotels, directors of restaurants, clubs, cruise companies and high representatives of numerous hospitality related companies is really outstanding.

I have to say that it was great to get advice from them, answers to questions that we as students have and just listen to their life experiences in different companies. It was indeed a great opportunity to make contacts for our future career and on behalf of all the students who attended this session, it was a real pleasure to share this with you all and below I have a few pics to share with you!

Brazilian former graduates 1990 – 1995 thanks for the click!!

I also wanted to post a few pics about some activities that some courses like HO2 students (Hotel Operations II) have lately performed. Thanks to Johanne Fremmich for the pics of her and her classmates during the internship fair that they prepared in order for everyone to know more about the hotel they worked in, the activities and the tasks that they performed during their period of internship. This was really a source of information for a lot of students who are starting to apply for internships and training programs. Great work guys!!!

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Welcome to Summer Batch!

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Pamela Calvas

Hello everyone! It has been a while since I last posted blogs and I have really missed it!

After finishing an internship in Geneva, I am returning to Les Roches in order to complete the Postgraduate Program in Hospitality (PGD II). I am positive this semester is going to be amazing for everyone and I really hope the blogs I will write will help current and prospective students to know more about the school and its activities.

First of all, I would like to give a warm welcome to everyone, although by the time this is posted it will already be week 4 … New and returning students have been arriving to Les Roches for summer batch in the last couple of weeks and there have already been a few activities going on.

One of them of course was the Swiss National day that took place on the 1st of August when most students were already on campus. We had the pleasure of seeing the parades in Crans-Montana and afterwards an amazing show of fireworks that lasted around 15 minutes, which was awesome. You could really feel the happiness of Swiss people during this day, I have made a short video about it…

After my internship in Geneva, which I will talk about in my next post, I went back to Ecuador to visit my family and friends, it was a nice break from Europe but I was actually looking forward to coming back to Blûche. Each batch, either Winter or Summer batch, enjoys a special feeling when they come back after an internship period. In the first couple of weeks, it was a feeling of excitement to see everyone again, not only your classmates but also the returning students from last summer batch in different classes, teachers and everyone who helps out at Les Roches.

We all get to share a lot of stories regarding the previous internship and the places we have discovered. All this is real feedback that you get from your friends which is really important because you start building up different criteria concerning future job or internship opportunities that might help you to find the right path in the field of Hospitality which is so broad. I will share some advice and tips in regards to internships from my previous experience in Geneva.

Here a few pictures of new friends and people having already a good time at Les Roches!! I am really happy to be back!

PGD 2 returning students welcoming PGD 1 new class! In Atlas, a little pub in Bluche where you can meet everyone!

Making friends with my new classmates…. So happy to be back !

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Time flies when you’re having fun… or working hard

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Whitney

During the first month in the hotel, things were not very busy as this is low/rainy season but now after the second month there have been a few weeks of full occupancy and I have a taste of how crazy it can get. I barely noticed that another month had gone by.
My major focus this month has been doing some menu revisions and putting together a Pick up Chart for the service team. My wine course came in very handy for this. I had an entire a la carte menu, an extensive wine list, pictures and an ingredients list to work with. It took some long hours of consideration and much back and forth with corrections and revisions between the Chef and me and the GM and me but I finally finished. Having learned the importance of knowing exactly what was on the menu at school, I knew the pressure was on the make sure what I came up with was on the ball.

So now every day in briefing time the whole service team is doing pick up chart training with an emphasis on the wine pairings.

Otherwise, I have been getting more and more used to being here and the different customs of the culture. And as I get more involved in the work itself, I realize just how valuable the little things we learn at Les Roches are. That when you know how to do something properly, it simply makes things easier and quicker. If I could add a word of advice to any new or prospective students: there will be times when you wonder, why am I learning this or how in the world could this be useful? Embrace all of the training that we get because it will be important and I am try to help my Cambodian colleagues who don’t have much formal training to see these little things and ways of working and adopt them.

Cambodia Travels

On one of my days off, I went to visit the BanteaySrey Butterfly Centre where they farm butterflies and provide some local residents with the tools and equipment to participate in this sustainable activity and a small source of income as some of the cocooned specimens are sold and shipped abroad.

I also saw the War museum where local men who fought in the various Cambodian wars have a tour of the old artifacts. There was everything there from fighter jets to landmine shells, most were either Russian or Chinese made. It gives you a sense of the destruction that took place here, but as I left, it made me realize how far Cambodia has come in the small number of years they have had war-free.

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1 Month In…

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Whitney

Angkor Wat Temple and its reflection

I have now been in Cambodia for a month. And what a month it has been! On arrival at the smallest international airport I have ever seen, the first thing I noticed was that it smelled like lemon grass and the air was warm and thick with moisture (its rainy season here), so unlike the mountains in Bluche. It was a welcome change after having travelled for a looong time. I spent the first few days taking it all in and getting over my jet lag.

Tuk tuk or taxi

Siem Reap is a very historically rich area and there are a number of ancient temples which span reigns of both Buddhist and Hindu kings and the overlapping of the two eras makes the buildings even more interesting. I visited Angkor Wat and was blown away by the attention to detail throughout the structures and the homage paid to the gods of both religions. The town of Siem Reap is very busy and colourful with bicycles, cars, trucks, mopeds, tuk tuks and people sharing the thankfully wide roads.

A window in the temple gates

It took me some time to figure out exactly what side of the road Cambodians drive on and found that officially it’s the right but I must say that not many take this into consideration. There are a number of markets and quite a happening night life of pubs and restaurants filled with travelers.

Travelling alone, as I am, isn’t a problem at all as most are open to meeting any and all new people.

La Residence d’Angkor proved to be more beautiful than the pictures I saw before coming here. The property is absolutely stunning, full of greenery and wood it has a certain old-world charm. So far, work has been good, not overly busy because it is officially low season here along with the rain. When the rain stops sometime in October, tourism high season begins. My duties have not been too numerous yet as I am still getting used to the way of working here and the hotel itself. The staff members (and all Cambodian people so far) are very welcoming and ready to answer any questions. I feel quite at home already and ready to sink my teeth in.

I am certain that I will learn a lot, not just the techniques and service styles and the running of the hotel but culture and working with people as well.

Today I bought a bicycle… wish me luck with driving on the right side of the road!

Animal friends… beware of the biting monkeys.

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See you later!

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Whitney

So after a few weeks packed with final practicals and final exams we all had to dig out our suitcases, get a number of cardboard boxes and pack up our rooms. It’s funny how somehow, without noticing it you accumulate and acquire so much more stuff than you came with, making it ten times more difficult to pack! Some of us are going straight on to HOII and are going on holiday but most are going to different corners of the world to start our 6 month internships.

It has been a long term packed with everything from how to clean different floors to how to calculate formulas like REVPAR and ARR. But it’s only been five short months. We have seen two seasons and the beginning of summer. Friendships have been forged and a good time had by all. I thought it would be nice to see what some of my classmates have had to say about their experiences in the past semester.

It’s been an insightful journey and a very practical year; you get to meet billions of people which is awesome.
Adventurous, exciting and new, a big change and challenge.
School is located in an isolated area, but the people are crazy and fun.
A mixture of experiences which would scare, excite and intrigue any individual, not a typical university.
A wonderful insight into the world of hospitality. I now know how to make my own bed.
A near death experience. (this from one of our more accident prone students this year with 3 falls, stomach flu and so many visits to the doctor)
Getting to know so many new people from different countries is one of the big advantages. Hopp GC! (a student from Zurich)
From a teacher: We are teaching discipline that will be necessary for the future not only our subject. It is a good lead in to the internships where this education will continue. It has also been my first semester and it has been an absolute pleasure.
The snow is really beautiful. Travelling is so easy and transport is really reliable.

Each person has had their own unique experience and we have all come away with a lot. I look forward to seeing my classmates again in January and hearing all about their internships which I am sure will all be very different and exciting.

For now I will be writing from Cambodia telling you about the country, its history and people and of course my internship as it progresses.

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PGDip Event: Memories on Broadway

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Whitney

Each semester, the Post Graduate Diploma II class puts on an event. This event is an integrated project and counts as 40% of each of their 5 subjects: Planning and Development, Marketing, Events Management, Yield and Revenue and Performance Management.

This year, the 60 students were divided into teams and each team came up with an event proposal along the theme of “Memorable Moments”. The teachers then came together and decided which event was the most feasible and the winning group became the management team overseeing every detail of the function with the help of their classmates. “Memorable Moments from Broadway” was the winning team. The event included a four course dinner with an aperitif and wine and excellent decorations, service and entertainment. Of course the PGDip students took care of all the elements from the cooking, to the serving, to the dancing, to the cleaning up.

To include the rest of the student body, they asked for participants in their entertainment group and I was able to dance to some of the classic tunes from Broadway. We were also joined by Ayeshah , an HOIII student, who sang and performed the most beautiful version of “One Night Only” from Dreamgirls and the funny duet of Nina and Ayush, who were the announcers. It was a wonderful event with about 125 guests which ended on a high with everyone dancing up a storm on our makeshift dance floor in Market Place.

Watch the video to get the feel of the event!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj1FxxEa3jg&feature=channel_video_title

Pictures: from Pothen Cherian and various students