Penn State Week 3

I can’t believe it’s already our third week here at Penn State – time is flying by! This week was yet another incredible week, action-packed full of fun adventures and lots of new information.

Monday – To begin our day, we met with Susan Santos, the director of campus dining at South Food District at Redifer. She discussed the importance of proper customer service, and we all learned a lot of helpful information on how to treat customers right and why it’s even relevant. From there, we hopped in the car and drove over to the Nittany Lion Inn, a BEAUTIFUL and charming hotel located at the corner of Penn State’s Campus. We were all in awe as we entered the hotel and made our way into our private dining area – the decorations were just beautiful and we couldn’t help but stare! 

Then our very important Guest of Honor, Gail Hurley, arrived to have lunch with us. Gail is the Associate Vice President of Auxiliary and Business Services (a very important role!), and after describing the endless amount of tasks she performs on a daily basis, she gave the 4 interns some very helpful advice regarding our future careers and professional goals. After leaving the hotel with our stomachs full of good food, we headed over to the Sensory Lab, where Dr. Bordi and his team work hard at testing different food/beverage products for various companies. 

We got to sample Dr. Bordi’s special sports recovery drink he invented, got to perform a sensory analysis of candies, and then were on our way to our next stop of the day – Pegula Ice Arena. Pegula, the home of the Penn State hockey team, is a brand-new facility, and it was gorgeous (and HUGE) on the inside! After our tour finished up, we headed back to the dorms and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Tuesday – After all the sunshine and warm weather we had been having, we were in for quite a shock when we woke up to find it was cold and rainy out :( so we bundled up in warm clothes, grabbed our umbrellas, and headed over to the famous Penn State Creamery for our tour. We got to see how the plant operates, how they make all their ice cream/milk/cheese, and even got to sample freshly-made vanilla ice cream right out of the machines. YUM! 

After, we headed back to the conference room in Redifer for a meeting with Jim Richard and Lisa Wandel to discuss their jobs and some of the dining locations on campus. After fueling up with lunch at Pollock, we walked across campus to meet with Karen Jackson, who is in charge of Food-Pro, a computer system that Penn State uses to create recipes, order food, take inventory, etc. After another long and eventful day, we headed back to the dorm to work on our special event we are planning. We all agreed on a theme, so from there we began brainstorming ideas for food and decorations, but I think we got a little too excited and came up with too many options. Now the hard part will be figuring out which ones we want to serve at the event!

Wednesday – Today we were treated to a day off – oh, how nice it was to relax and enjoy a day of having nothing planned for us!  Unfortunately the weather decided it wanted to be cold and grey, so for the majority of the day we just hung out in the dorms and relaxed. We then took a shopping trip to the nearby Plato’s Closet and returned with dresses, shirts, shoes, books, etc.-  needless to say we were happy campers.

Thursday – Originally we were scheduled to work Special Olympics from 5 AM – 2 PM, and as much as we were looking forward to the 4 AM wake-up (NOT!), we were perfectly okay when Maria told us they didn’t need us for the day. So instead, we headed over to the computer labs at 9 AM to do some mandatory training and testing.  2 ½ long hours later, we left the room exhausted from starting at the screen but also happy to have 2 new certifications under our belts. The next stop on our list was meeting with Stacy Jones, a clinical dietitian at the University Health Services building. With the majority of us being dietetics majors, it was so nice for us to meet with a dietitian and get insight as to what her role is on campus. After the meeting, we took a trip to the on-campus Post Office, where we were greeted by Mike the Mailman. Apparently he is very famous around campus and well-loved by many, which, after meeting him and seeing his fun personality, I can see why!

Friday – We got off to a bright and early start (4:50 AM!) working at Findlay Dining Commons for the Pennsylvania Special Olympics. Aimme and I spent the entire morning preparing French toast batter, dipping the bread, and flipping hundreds and hundreds of French slices. After breakfast was finished being served, we wasted no time and jumped right into helping prepare lunch: Grilled Cheese sandwiches. Again, we put around 100 sandwiches on the grill at once, flipped them, put them in the pans, and repeated this process for about 3 hours. Needless to say, our wrists (and feet!) were pretty sore and tired after we finished work at 2 pm. 

However, we were in for quite the treat when we walked outside to discover that it was sunny and warm out! We all spent the rest of the day napping, soaking up the sun, or catching up on some much-needed relaxation time.

Saturday – Saturday was another bright and early start time for us -we arrived at Findlay by 4:45 AM to work the last day of Special Olympics. This time, Aimme and I started off by serving breakfast to close to 3,000 guests. It was crazy busy and very chaotic at times, but it was so nice being able to interact with all the guests and serve them their food. They were so kind and so appreciative, which made all our hard work and early wake-up calls totally worth it. After breakfast was finished, we switched positions again and ended up working the tray belt. It was a lot of hard work separating the dirty plates from the compost from the silverware from the trash, etc. but again, we were able to interact with the guests and talk with them, which gave me such a happy feeling in my heart. At 2 pm, we were thrilled to be done with our busy day and headed back to relax for the rest of the night. Boy, did it feel nice to lay outside in the sun and not have to stand on my feet for 9 hours!

Sunday - I think it's safe to say that we were all pretty exhausted from the past 2 days' work, so we were thrilled to have a day off. Although we didn't have a set agenda for today, we still have to work on our individual presentations coming up next week, so I spent some time reviewing my PowerPoint and making any changes that needed to be made. After that, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and wandered around downtown and did a little shopping! 

 After 3 weeks of being here at Penn State, I've learned so much and have had so many fun adventures. It's amazing how fast time is flying by, but I'm enjoying every second here! I can't wait to see what kind of new adventures this week brings! :)