Hi, my name is Peter De Temmerman. I am a student currently enrolled in the Hospitality Management program at The New York City College of Technology.

Six months ago I followed my heart and made a transatlantic move from Brussels, the city where I had been living for most of the past 15 years, to New York City.

After receiving my Masters in Educational Sciences from the University of Leuven, I worked 7 years as a family counselor in Brussels. Being no longer a student and having my own financial means, I threw myself totally into one of my passions: traveling around the world. My first visit outside of Europe brought me to Turkey, a country that won my heart. Back in Belgium, I decided to enroll for evening classes Turkish and to make long story short, I ended up with an additional Masters in Translation Dutch-French-Turkish. During this study, I changed jobs and started to work full time in the Dutch Language House Brussels where I was a project manager responsible for Dutch language related events in a mostly French speaking city and where I was teaching Dutch to bachelor students at the Erasmus College of Brussels, a job I was also doing for 7 years until the moment I left Brussels. My free time in Brussels was mostly reserved for meeting family and friends, taking cooking classes for the last three years and doing sports. “Metro-boulot-dodo”, “Subway-work-sleep/home”, as they say in French, a routine lots of people get into after working several years.

So, why this change? As mentioned earlier, love is the reason that brought me to the States. I decided to see this as an ideal opportunity to make another career change. The program in Hospitality Management seemed –and still seems- to me the ideal way to combine my talents, my interests and my passions: my love for traveling and cooking, the fact I speak four languages, my interest in the travel and lodging industry and my previous work experience in managing projects and events. At this moment I feel more directed towards the traveling and lodging industry and hope to specify my career path and enlarge my professional network in the following years. And which place on earth would be a better place than New York City to start this?

The picture in the header is taken during the Light Festival in Ghent, the city I was born in Belgium. The next edition will take place in January 2018. Ghent is a beautiful, rebellious medieval gem half an hour by train from Brussels. Every year in July, the city welcomes ten days long the oldest and one of the biggest free music and theatre festivals in Europe. Definitely worth a visit!