My name is Karen and I’m from Baltimore, Maryland. I’m a rising super senior at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, studying dietetics with a minor in medical Spanish. I’m interested in becoming a registered dietitian and working as a food service manager. I’m excited to see what an average day is like in the food service management and dietetics world. Fortunately, RPI has a campus dietitian and we will work closely with her for the entire first half of the internship! Along with visiting other areas of food service management including marketing, purchasing, finance, and more.
Hey y’all my name is Caroline. I’m originally from Annapolis, Maryland but I will be a rising senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I’m majoring in biology and minoring in medical anthropology, and hoping to go to grad school for dietetics to become a registered dietitian. I’ve worked in the food industry as a server for many years, so I’m really excited to learn even more about food service management this summer, especially the role the dietitian plays at a university. I can’t wait to see what this summer has in store for me!
Arrival
After a 5-6 hour drive on Sunday from Maryland to upstate New York for both of us, we arrived in Troy at about the same time and got to see the apartment we would be sharing for the next 8 weeks. We are staying in Polytechnic Residence Commons on the edge of campus, and the rooms are very spacious! We each get our own room with a full size bed, a large kitchen area with a kitchen table and chairs, and two bathrooms. The building even has a gym in it which we were relieved to discover. Overall, we are very happy with our accommodations (already stocked with snacks for us by the District Manager, Maureen, to our surprise) and really excited for our first day of work. We are just feet away from downtown Troy and are looking forward to exploring what it has to offer!
Day 1: Monday, June 8
We arrived at the office, which looks very much like a large townhouse. It has two floors, many offices, a kitchen, and there’s even a bathtub in the bathroom!
We had orientation and signed paperwork. Our campus tour with Kim (the RD) and Maureen (District Manager) included all the retail dining locations such as Moe’s, the Student Union, coffee shops, and lunch at Evelyn’s which was so fancy! We had a salmon fillet with wild rice and green beans, and a vegan sloppy Joe. It’s hard to believe a college campus has a cafe with such good quality ingredients. Everything is local and fresh, and the menu changes monthly. We are looking forward to trying it all! We continued the tour of all the beautiful buildings, and got our ID cards and parking passes with access to anywhere on campus. After getting back to the office, Kim told us all about herself and her journey of becoming a campus dietitian. Kim lent us a book about how to eat when training for a marathon and one about herbs since we love to read! Overall, our first day could not have gone any better. Everyone we have met is so friendly, open, and welcoming to us and we already feel right at home. We are so excited to see what types of projects we will be working on.
Luckily, we both love to workout, so after work we hit the gym and the outdoor track. Afterwards we ate dinner at Ali Baba’s off campus and enjoyed a delicious array of Mediterranean and Turkish food. It was close to our apartment, cheap, and fantastic, so we will definitely be returning. We can already tell the food in Troy and RPI is going to be incredible.
Day 2: Tuesday, June 9
We attended a weekly 2-hour manager meeting, and got introduced to the remainder of the manager staff. There are 14 managers total, including those for retail, catering, residential dining, marketing, and human resources. It was refreshing to see how great of a team everyone makes here; the managers are effective, friendly, and have open communication with each other. Matt, the General Manager, leads the meetings and has given us fair warning that we will often be put on the spot to present what we have been learning as well as put our two cents in. It feels good to be accepted and valued already, even though we are only interns on our second day!
After the meeting we toured the athletic facilities, the gym, the wellness center, and everywhere else we didn’t see yesterday with Kim. Slowly we are orienting ourselves with this beautiful campus. We ate lunch at Evelyn’s again with Kim, Maria (Marketing), and Amy (Unit Controller).
After lunch, we went back to Kim’s office and she gave us our first project. A company called General Electric (GE) is holding a Nutrition and Food Safety Expo next Thursday, and each year they reach out to Kim and invite her to have a booth with any topic of her choice, although this year she is leaving the decision up to us. After consideration we decided on the topic of sugar---mainly the difference between added sugars and natural sugars, and some common foods containing added sugars that people might not be aware of, and an alternative lower sugar option. We got to work right away researching everything there is to know about sugar for the rest of the day.
After work, we signed up for a groupon for an unlimited month of barre and hot yoga classes at a studio just 10 minutes away! We have never tried barre before, but we really wanted to have an activity we could both do together since Caroline runs and Karen lifts weights. Luckily for us, barre is an incredible workout and we had a great time. We will definitely be getting our money’s worth for this! Since the dining hall closes at 630pm here, we stopped at Father’s (the campus convenience store) on the way back to stock up on food. They have an impressive selection of pre-made microwave meals and snacks that are actually nutritious! We are constantly amazed at how health driven this school’s food is, and we are very appreciative.
Day 3: Wednesday, June 10
Today we did more research for the sugar presentation, slowly compiling a google doc of relevant information. We decided on the food sample we are going to have at the GE expo---no bake peanut butter energy balls! The more we research the more we find ourselves constantly checking food labels everywhere we go to check the added sugar content…..
We ate lunch with Matt (the GM) in McNeil’s Room which is the Student Union here at RPI. It has 4 different concepts including Salad FX, Maxx Gourmet Deli, Thunder Mountain Curry, and Sandella’s Flatbread Cafe. Matt told us his journey leading him to RPI, and also told us all about Sodexo, the food company here. We learned a lot about one of the top 3 food companies for universities in the country, and are looking forward to asking him even more questions.
After work, we went to Hot Power Yoga and tested our flexibility, strength, and ability to withstand high temperatures while performing yoga. It was a great workout, especially alternated with the barre classes. We are very happy we will be able to stay fit this summer, since the food here is so good!
Day 4: Thursday, June 11
We did more sugar project research, emailed what we have to Maria (the marketing manager) so she can turn the information into appealing visuals for our poster board, print recipe cards, and make handouts. We also received copies of a menu for a summer camp here at RPI, and got to offer suggestions on how to make the menu healthier. This was a lot of fun because we could put our own personality into it. However, the camp is not required to make any changes. But the options we gave them were even more delicious than the ones they had so hopefully they take some of our suggestions!
Today we ate lunch at Russell Sage, the only dining hall that is open for summer. They have a hydration station which makes it really easy for students to want to drink water because they flavor it with whole pieces of fruit! This is one of our favorite parts of Russell Sage, as the flavor changes every time.
After lunch, we were introduced to the concept of MyZone. The main dining hall on campus, Commons, has a special allergy free area called MyZone that is available for certain students with food allergies such as gluten, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, dairy, and more. The area is stocked with snacks, microwaveable meals, and even hot meals cooked by a chef for the kids to choose from. This area enables them to manage their food allergy while still being able to eat at the dining hall and sit with their friends. One of our projects for the summer will be developing MyZone. Today we researched products for MyZone (everything must be gluten free and nut free and not produced in a facility that also carries nuts). This makes it difficult to find companies that are both compliant with Sodexo standards, not too expensive, and also tasty for the kids to eat.
We then watched a webinar on food allergies which tied in great with the MyZone work we had just been doing. In fact, RPI doesn't use nuts to prepare foods in the dining halls. We learned that food allergies have increased 50% from 1997 to 2011 which is an alarming statistic. We also learned that the FDA is now considering coconut to be a tree-nut which means RPI must get rid of all their coconut milk, coconut yogurt, and other coconut products to ensure they avoid nuts at all cost.
After work we did Barre Bootcamp at our yoga studio and then ate dinner at Muza, a super cute and delicious polish place across the street from our apartment. We got spinach and sauerkraut crepes, stuffed cabbage, potato pancakes, and pierogies.
Day 5: Friday, June 12
Today we printed out and arranged our materials for the sugar project onto our poster board, making sure everything looked visually appealing so that it will catch the eye of people who walk by our booth on Thursday. We ate lunch at McNeil’s Room and both had an AMAZING salad at Salad FX.
After work we did our own workouts and then went to The Whistling Kettle, a tea and sandwich cafe, for dinner in downtown Troy. They have hundreds of teas, and they bring your food on an adorable 3-tiered tray with sandwiches, salads, and a dessert. It took us so long to decide what to order because there were so many appealing options we decided that we will have to come back multiple times in order to try everything!
Day 6: Saturday, June 13
THE TROY FARMER’S MARKET is the best. Over 80 vendors selling local goat cheese, wine, bread, jam, honey, pesto, 15+ flavors of nut butters, produce, etc, plus breweries, distilleries, and a pet adoption tent! We spent entirely too much money and yet nowhere near enough. We can’t wait to come back every Saturday. Afterwards we hit up Whole Foods for more healthy goodies!! That night we opened the local wine we bought at the farmer’s market and watched many episodes of Gilmore Girls to unwind from our first week.
Day 7: Sunday, June 14
We went to Hot Power Yoga in the morning to knock out a workout, ate lunch at home with our fresh farmer’s market food, then went onward to visit Saratoga Springs!! On the way into town we stopped at their farmer’s market (we’ve got farmer’s market fever) and bought a homemade granola bar (SO GOOD AND HEALTHY) and tasted more wine. The farmer’s market was equally as impressive as Troy’s, just a little smaller but with a couple different booths that we did not see in Troy, including the granola bar place. Then we shopped on Broadway Street, bought hats for hiking (no ticks booo), and spent a couple hours in the independent bookstore. The town was quaint and beautiful and we were very happy to have made the short 35 minute drive up north. We definitely hope to go to the farmer’s market up here again, at least to snag some more of those granola bars!
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