I’m a freshman in City Tech. Before I attended to this college, I was a high school student and many of my friends were having the conversations about “Which major would you choose in the college?” and ” What do you want to do after graduated from the college?” Every time when they ask me about it, I always don’t have the answer for them.

One day, I had a conversation with my best friend, I told him that I wish I can own a restaurant after graduated from college, produce some kind of new and delicious foods. And he suggest me to choose the major named “Hospitality Management” Then I chose to go to City Tech and chose the Hospitality Management. For my working experience, I worked at the tea shops for a long time and I also worked at a Japanese restaurant for a few time. But I still don’t have much knowledge about the foods, and I wish I can learn more in this major.

In the future, I want to learn more managing skills and more knowledge about different foods, such as “how are they produced?” or ” how can they combine with other foods and make them more delicious?” in order to enhance my personal strength. And I also wish to have some friends, and we can talk and share our ideas to each other.

My hospitality experience began when I entered high school. Younger I didn’t care to search what hospitality meant so I thought I was going to a school for nursing embarrassing I know. Day one of entering high school I was placed in the kitchen and never left. Well sometimes I did to do front of the house work, if there was an event to volunteer for and it happened to be front of the house I didn’t mind. I felt to understand Hospitality I needed to do both sections. I found out my junior year of high school that my school was a paired with C-CAP or Careers Through Culinary Arts Program. Its a program to get teens into the industry as soon as possible. When I heard that it was like a “bam then it hit me” moment I can start now. Or at least I thought the very first program I wanted to join I was too young 15 looking for a way in I asked the person in charge of the program practically begging to be accepted but there was nothing she could do about it I was too young.

I turned that lucky number 16 December of that year and waited till the following fall semester of school (senior year) and I was hungry I signed up for every program I could get my hands on that C-CAP was offering. I didn’t face any troubles in being accepted either. Thank goodness. Between the job shadows, kitchen training programs, and assistance with your culinary path C-CAP opens doors for many and its opened many for me. Not only job wise but visually they put me in places that I never thought I’d see the inside of and opened my eyes to my own personal door that helped me realize that in the hospitality industry is where I want to be. I enjoy both sides but my heart will always be with the kitchen. A lot of the time you’ll hear back of house people knocking down front of the house but I hold equal respect for both. Back of the house receives the pressure of getting delicious food out to hungry customers all while trying to stay consistent with flavor and plating and being hot is always is understatement in the kitchen. And front of the house works to keep diners wanting to come back for more all while dealing with the attitudes from kitchen staff.

I decided to continue on with Hospitality in college and have my focus be Culinary Arts for the idea that I’m now comfortable with the demands of the industry. I like to be pushed to my limits because its that kind of thing that helps a person grow and in this industry thats all you’ll be doing as long as you stay, is grow and learn. I love the idea of that it excites me. I love the idea that even though you’ll enter a kitchen and you’ll see a sea of white and black everyone looks the same but no one is. The personalities are different the techniques are different, something different can be learned from every individual in that kitchen and you’ll never know that unless you watch, learn, ask, and try to get the most out of the experiences in front of you.

I chose the major Hospitality Management because there’s a wide span of options I can go from there. I’m heading toward the direction of hotel management and tourism. I learned that pay doesn’t really matter if you’re not satisfy with what you’re doing. So my career goals are to find out what I’m passionate about and be content with my job. My personal interests are hands on activity and traveling, which goes hand in hand with this major. If I’m interested in what I’m doing, then I’m serving my guests instead of putting up with customers. The only work experience I have dealing with this field is working in a small bakery a few years ago. I’m hoping to gain more experiences before I graduate. I have been told my strength is persuasiveness, which would be good for dealing with customers.

I am a first semester freshman here at City Tech. I chose the Hospitality Management major because I love food! I like learning about it, making it, and most of all, eating it. I’d one day like to call myself a foodie and have my own place to express it. I look forward to my higher education experience to help me get there, while also learning about other things that interest me, like culture, business, technology, fashion, and philosophy.

I’ve spent the last two years of my life preparing to become a student at the Culinary Institute of America. As a junior in high school, I took collegiate classes hoping they’d prepare me for college. I studied eight months of my senior year as an intern for Madison of Madison Lee’s Cakes, while working as a counter girl and now waitress in the café/bakery downstairs, Cousin John’s Bakery. With my internship at Madison Lee’s Cakes I had the opportunity to compete in Lisa Mansour’s 2014 glamour cake competition. It was a great opportunity and  learning experience for my career. Here is the first cake I ever decorated. competition cakes

Although I was accepted to CIA, things just didn’t work out financially. However, studying at City Tech is a far better choice. In a short amount of time, I’ve realized how great of a school and program I am now a part of. I’m going to have to get used to this profound amount of responsibility that was given to me, but I want to learn to accept it not fear it.

     I came to NY one year ago and studied English in ESL in LaGuardia CC to go to City Tech. This college is my second college, because I have a bachelor degree of Global Communication in Japan where I am from. The reason why I chose this college is that a lot of people in NY have various races, cultures and back grounds. My first job was mainly an organizer of TV programs at a cable TV company in Tokyo for about three years; I developed my abilities such as such as a creator, a negotiator, and an organizer. Then, I belonged to one of Japanese domestic airlines which is a part of All Nippon Airways as a flight attendant for three years and half; the reason why I chose this career was that I realized that I preferred to serve customers directly. When I was a member of a committee of customer satisfactions in the company, I learned the company policy deeply which is “The much smaller things are, the more we have to take care carefully and politely for passengers”; this hospitality mind aroused my curiosity. Moreover, I learned that safety is one of the most significant factors for hospitality businesses to be success. Due to this reason, I studied Food Protection system and obtained a qualification of Food Protection in NY last year. Although my goal is still unclear, I prefer to serve customers and manage work environment somewhere such as hotels, airlines and restaurants. Through this campus life, I would like to be a person who can show more people hospitality and share happiness as much as I can.

I always wondered what the answer is when people asked me “who do you want to be, what do you want to do?” and I still to this day don’t have an answer for them. What I do know is that I want to be successful and experience as much as I can in order to know the answers.

Before I chose the hospitality management major, I was majored in Psychology. I thought “that’s it, it has to be the one”…but it wasn’t. So, after my first semester in Brooklyn college, I immediately did a late transfer to city tech. I fell in love with the environment and saw how nice everyone is. Since this major is very new to me, I don’t have many experience in the hospitality field, but I did a few times work in catering. I think for me it is safe to say that I wish I started off working in a slower paced job and then work my way up to a more fast paced.

When it comes to my strengths, I think that I am determined and dedicated. I like showing people that I can do it. So, that is what leads me to my goal. In the future, I hope one day I can open my own business with my mom. Although this is my future, I would very much like to open a small cafe/health store because my mom always wanted one, but never got a chance to. I want this to be a gift for her, so hopefully, if it becomes a successful business, my goal would be to expand it.

As a recent high school graduate, starting college is a drastic change. Not being told what to do, or how to do it can be scary but i know I can handle it. I see myself managing hotels and traveling a lot, teaching and learning from others in a goal I have given myself because this is something that makes me who I am. I have lots of experience with people, as I interact with them at church, work and lots of other places. All my life I have been doing community service for the Salvation army, as it also is my church. I have learned to assist with peoples attitudes and situations, and not everyone is lucky enough to a perfect life, so managing different personalities is my strength. In college I plan to learn how to succeed in and travel to many parts of the country and maybe over seas. I would love to see myself learning from others views and cultures. Learning different languages and communicating with others around the world would be the topping to my career. I want to be someone who knows what they are doing in their field, I would love to be looked up as an example. With hard work and dedication I know I can do this, the hard things in life aren’t handed to you. You have to work hard for them. But its surly worth it at the end of the path.

I have dedicated my career thus far on providing the highest level of customer service in a myriad of areas throughout the service field. I began with a two year foundation in retail as a sales representative for Steve Madden, a designer shoe company, from there I moved into the restaurant industry starting out as a bus boy at a small bar in 2006. Over the years I worked my way from bus boy, to bartender to server, to my current position as a seasoned server/floor-manager at Soco, a popular soul food restaurant in downtown Brooklyn. My aspiration to open, own, and operate my own bar lounge one day is what drives my constant thirst for knowledge as I am currently pursuing a degree in Hospitality and Management from the New York City College of Technology.

Nice to meet you in this course and this is my first years of collage. I came here to America for about four years. In these recent years, I had been very confused and lost about the future because I felt that everything was messed up until my high school teacher asked me what my dream was. To be a chef, be a man that can bring happiness to the people by food. The hospitality management is useful and it offers all the skills for challenging the society.

Before i came to America, my dad was my instructor, leading me through this cooking pathway, always letting me cook because everything comes from practice. He tried to send me to other restaurants and hoped I can learn more from them. The first chef that I had met was Master Lin; he never let me cook and just gave me some trivia. I often felt unhappy about it and even wanted to leave until he said something in front of me. He said “the reason that I don’t want you to cook is because I want you to learn everything about the kitchen first”. A chef is not only cooking, he should be omnipotent. It’s a modern society here, you can find cooking methods on the internet and there will be an opportunity to get more experiences. Fortunately, I found this course and believes that it can really help me because it is an academic education. This course attracts me most because it will teach me how to manger a business.     I like cooking, but I am more interested in how to own a restaurant. I believe these four years in college can strengthen our foundation and develop our relation network. We don’t know what will happen in the future, but we should work hard now because all that you’ve had prepared is for tomorrow.

I am attending City Tech in the Hospitality Management being a graduate from William E.Grady High School. I took the culinary arts program for 3 years and found it very interesting but it was more interesting when I’m cooking with my friends. My teachers, Mrs. William who is a graduate from City Tech and Mrs. Yourman who is a graduate from CIA (Culinary Institute of America)  taught me about cooking methods, knife skills, and having hands-on experience by working in the teacher’s cafe.

During my high school career, I also participated in the C-CAP program which provides hands-on experience in a kitchen so students can learn. The C-CAP programs also give out scholarships but not for free, as students need to participated in the C-CAP competition and past the preliminary which I didn’t but it was exciting and Tense at the same time but it was a good learning experience. Other C-CAP programs I attended were Winter Chef, Job Shadow, Spring Chef. Winter Chef and Spring Chef are the same but at different time of the year where students traveled to Kings borough Community college to learn different culture cooking like Italian, French, Chinese, etc for four days straight,  Job Shadow is when students traveled to a professional dining facilities for hands-on experience and learning how they operated. These programs help me improved and taught other kind of culture food that I never heard of which was interesting. I still think that I have a lot more to learn before I choose what I want to be in the future. High School was exciting not just by the programs but also because of the Staff and student/friends. I join the chess Club with my friends and we won second place with team effort and this was the first time Grady Chess team got a trophy which we placed on the wall in the teacher conference room and I received a trophy for winning most of my individual games.

Originally, I thought about being a Chef but there were other options in the culinary arts career so I decided to wait and go through college to see what I really want to do in the Culinary field. I believed rushing to your goals unprepared is a terrible mistake as people should take their time and study at home and at college to make sure they know everything they need to so that they can succeed in their dream.