Tag Archives: Les Roches

Welcome to the life of a hotel management student…

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My name is Filippa Hertzman and I’m a 24 year old globe trotter from the south of Sweden  starting at Les Roches Switzerland in January 2011. I will transfer directly to the semester 5 of my Bachelor. For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by hotels; these magical places where people sleep on fluffy pillows with chocolates on top, wake up and go to large scrumptious all-you-can-eat buffets, get new towels and made up rooms every day, and 24 hour assistance only by pressing a button.

I have never regretted my chosen career path; in fact, it’s probably one of the best choices I’ve made in my life so far. What’s most thrilling about working in the hospitality industry is the fact that you’ll have no idea of how the day will turn out –every day will be full of surprises.

When I graduated from high school I still hadn’t figured out what to “be when I grow up”, so I went on a three-month backpacking trip with my best and oldest friend to Australia and Asia (no need to mention we had the time of our life right?).

When I came back I started working at a supermarket in Sweden, and after a few months I had saved enough money to move all the way to the home of the sheep, or in other words, Palmerston North, New Zealand, where I found a job as a waitress and ended up living for seven months. The following year I moved across the pond to Melbourne, Australia and enrolled at RMIT’s fashion merchandising course. I love clothes and fashion; always have, and naturally I thought that was what I was destined to work with.

After five months I realised that this was not for me, and moved back home to continue working at the supermarket. I earned quite a lot and still lived at home but I was starting to get restless, and knew that I couldn’t stay for much longer. My only ticket to the “real” world was through education. Period. I was accepted to a business school in Sweden but changed my mind at the last minute –it just didn’t feel right. Instead, I moved to the city of lights and the home of the croissants – Paris, and when I wasn’t partying on Champs Elysees or vintage shopping in Le Marais I worked as a babysitter for two French boys.

During my first couple of weeks I picked up a book I had read a few years back in Oz called “Hotel Babylon” about a receptionist’s 24 hours in a luxury London hotel. I finished it the following week and as I put it down it was finally clear to me –I’m going to work in hotels! I started writing the application letter to Les Roches Marbella and a month or so later I got a reply that I had been accepted.

I was beyond excited. In January 2010, I started my first day as an HOI student at Les Roches Marbella, in June I went on my first internship as a front office agent and concierge assistant at a five star hotel in Sweden, returned to Marbella in January 2011 for HOII, and my latest internship has been in PR & Marketing at a four star hotel in Abu Dhabi.

I thought it was time for me to meet new people and hit the slopes (and of course enjoy the après ski), so I decided to leave the Marbella campus and move back to Switzerland for my third year. Yes, back. I lived in Basel for two years during my early teens, but the difference this time is that the people will be saying bonjour instead of gruetzi… and that I’m a little older and wiser too, of course!

See you later!

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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.

PGDip Event: Memories on Broadway

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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

PGDip Event: Memories on Broadway

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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

Sports Activity and Lausanne Marathon

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Besides the general academic activities in Les Roches, we also have the Sports and Activities Department which is always inviting and encouraging students to attend to basketball or volleyball games, badminton, tennis, trekking, Yoga lessons, or any other seasonal sports and activities. During these past months, a lot of these activities have taken place and any student can become a member of these sport teams. In the winter time, other activities such as skiing and snowboarding are encouraged by this department as they are a must-try while studying at Les Roches!

During the last month, students were encouraged to take part in the annual Marathon in Lausanne that took place this past weekend.  Here, not only the students but also faculty of Les Roches did a great performance representing Les Roches as well! The marathon was organized to give runners the best conditions. To make a path for the marathon, streets were closed to vehicles from the lakeside in Lausanne, through the green hillsides of the city, making it easy for runners to stay focused on the race. This annual event gathers participants from everywhere. It’s a race for everyone, from professionals to amateurs. Every runner matters and everyone gets a medal!

Congratulations to all of you who went there! Keep it up!


Here there is a compilation of some pictures from this day,  a special thanks to Janet Ling for providing these to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSsyU4vdNWM

Arriving to Les Roches !!

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I have arrived to Les Roches Campus at last!

It is great to be here already and I could not be happier. Once you get to the area, you have the real feeling of being in Switzerland. I am used to living in a valley, surrounded by mountains in Ecuador, but the scenery here is breathtaking…  I don’t know where to start to tell you all about it.
Frankly, my flight over here was a little bit of a nightmare because my flight was already delayed when I left Ecuador so I knew I was going to have a delay in my connection flight from Madrid to Geneva and I was really nervous.  Once I finally landed in Madrid, I had to literally run with my bags from one terminal to the other terminal, and waiting for customs took so long. Finally, when I got to the check in point, I knew they had probably closed the flight to Geneve because I was too late and I had no hopes to get on another flight on the same day.

But there I was, only 5 minutes before my flight was supposed to leave for Genève and I thought, what do I have to lose, I will ask anyways, maybe this one is also delayed… and it was!!!  They said that it had been delayed for an hour or so because of a lost bag! I asked if they could help me checking in, and so they did. The flight went smoothly and in Genève I was able to find my Danish family who had been waiting for me at the airport.

After all of the waiting and the running, I could not believe that I had made it in spite of the circumstances, I was really lucky. It is a shame that I was in such a hurry all the time that I could not take any pictures of Genève to share with you, but it is a beautiful city from what I could see.  The very next day I had a bad jet lag but we drove early in the morning so that my sister could do the proper check-in at Les Roches.

Once you get into the canton of Valais the views are impressive, for those who have not been here before, you will only understand me when you see it for yourselves. Everything is so neat and it really looks like the pictures that we see on the internet. Right now there are a lot of green areas and tons of flowers all around the Bluche village and Les Roches campus.

At the main building, everyone seemed so happy to welcome new students and all the check-in procedures were easy to follow thanks to the assistance of the staff. There were a lot of new students too. My sister and I were assigned a room together and we really like it, for what we have seen all of the accommodations are neat and everyone seems quite happy. Once you get to Les Roches, you feel surrounded by people from all over the world,  people from Asia, Europe, South America, and when you are walking around campus you see everyone talking to each other and it is, in fact, like they were family.

Since I have not started with my PGD program yet, I have had time to explore the region a little. It is indeed like they mention in the brochures and the websites, the transportation here is really easy and they try to help you in every way possible.

Some advice for the new comers next week, try to have all of the documentation ready for the check in, so that it goes smoothly and then you won’t feel so tired at the end of your first day.

Also, all the IT information that they request for your computer should be followed, like the software in English and if you have a MAC computer, make sure the IT staff can have access to Windows in it, otherwise you will have to install a Windows software and it will take more time for them to get your computer ready. So yes, read through all of the requirements.

The weather has been nice most of the time although it has rained a bit, but everybody says that it is not normal at this time of the year, but the views when the sun goes down are amazing as you can see in some of these pictures.

I am sure that all of you who have not arrived yet are looking forward to be here and to study in this institute, and you should be. All of the staff have been very helpful with us and always trying to make you feel welcome. I am really looking forward to meeting the rest of the coming students and my future classmates. All this experience has been so exciting already for the first few days that I cannot wait to start with the classes and the practical learning. I hope you all are having a great start here in the school and for those who have not arrived yet, hope you have a better flight than I did!

See you soon in Les Roches!

Getting ready!

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Finally! Only a few more day and I will be on a plane to Switzerland.  Well, many of us will be! I have been waiting for this day with so much anticipation that waiting only for two more days seems like an eternity. Packing has taken a long time too. In fact, in the beginning, I thought I would be packing a lot less than what I have packed now; every time there was something else that I wanted to bring with me and I was saying to myself, “it doesn´t weigh too much” but now I am prepared to pay for overweight at the airport!  In my case, it is a 13 hour flight from Ecuador to Spain, and then a shorter flight from Madrid to Geneva.  I booked my flights some time in advance and I am relieved that I got a flight out of Madrid only a few hours after my flight from Ecuador, so that I do not have to wait too long for the connection flight and with so much luggage.

I also received an e-mail from Les Roches that reminded me of a few more things, so I highly recommend you to read through the pre-arrival list, even if you have done it some time ago, do it again to double check. I was very sure of all the things I had to bring with me but there are always some last minute things that could come to mind and that you might be forgetting about.

Something that I had totally forgot about was the plug adapters that I will need in Switzerland while using some of my electronics. Europe and most other countries in the world use a voltage which is twice that of the US. It is between 220 and 240 volts, whereas in Japan and in most of the Americas the voltage is between 100 and 127 volts.  Switzerland has its own standard of socket type and you can compare it to the one used in your country on this website.  So make sure to bring a couple of plug adapters with you otherwise you might not be able to use your electronics right away, and maybe you might even need a convertor, it depends on the type of electronic appliance. You can switch the voltage in some of them like in the hair drier, or the iron. Check this out

It might be, for some of you, the first time you travel with all of your stuff.  I have been thinking about all of the things that I need to bring and I want to get everything ready so that I can spend some more time with friends and family before leaving but the whole fact about leaving and the anticipation is so huge that I feel a little overwhelmed.

Thanks to the Facebook page of Les Roches I have been able to talk to some of the future students and some have shared their thoughts with me, so I know that many of us are feeling the same kind of nervousness. Probably once you get to the airport and say goodbye to your friends and family you might get emotional but it is totally normal to feel this way. Some of us come from very far away and not having our relatives or friends around will always delay the adjustment process to this new environment; however, it is great to hear all of the comments about Les Roches being more like a family for the students, and although I haven´t actually visited the campus before, it already seems like Les Roches is a very welcoming institution.

I feel it from the way the recruitment team has been with me and the support I have received by the people I have talked to online. And there are always things to look forward to like the fact that all of us will be making many new friends too!

Look forward to seeing all of you soon!

Happy Packing!!