Michigan State Week Five

This week had a great start with touring the Starbucks locations on campus. Michelle, Starbucks operations manager, began with a coffee tasting as is customary with any meeting held by Starbucks. After the tasting, Michelle was able to describe how the operations were created and all of the work that goes into continuing three successful locations around campus. The afternoon was spent with Bill, concessions manager, touring the Spartan stadium and Breslin Center, the basketball arena. Both of these venues are massive and captivating.

Tuesday morning was spent conducting a health inspection alongside Betty, university sanitation. This was a very good application of all things ServSafe, which is a certification I completed in May. After the inspection Greg, dining manager, gave a tour of the south neighborhood on campus. This included Case, Holden and Wilson hall. After the tour Cheryl, marketing manager, explained what all goes into the marketing for culinary services at MSU. There are a wide array of tasks that she completes from creating mugs for coffee to creating pamphlets about allergens for the dining halls.

Wednesday was spent working GPU. This event, Grandparents University, is an annual event in which alumni can bring their children for a three day stay as part of recruitment for the university...yes they start very young! Ha. This involved mostly front of the house tasks. I wiped down tables, directed people to the correct lines and made sure traffic flowed smoothly. The day wrapped up with a little dessert prep work for dinner later that day.

Thursday was spent working on the Student Organic Farms. I very much enjoyed this experience. It is intriguing all of the agriculture that MSU undertakes. On the Student Organic Farms they grow anything from edible flowers (yes I did try them) to corn. The crops are then harvested and packaged and sold each Thursday at a tent on campus. Watching the amount of people pour in right as the tent was up and ready was amazing. These people, I learned, are regulars that come each week to gather groceries. At peak time the tent can make almost $2,000 in one day. The work that the students who run the tent put in is hard, long and very admirable!