Teachers and Classes

I think it’s about time I go into greater depth on my actual education here…the teachers, the classes, the work involved in being a Management student.

As I’ve said before, it is pretty radically different than being a student in the US…at either the college level or JC. Hell, it’s not even like high school. I’d say it’s a bit of a combination of all of those…sorta.

Marketing:

This class is taught by a wonderfully nutty Italian man. He’s probably in his mid 40’s, married, and very “Italian”. His English is very good…sometimes we do get the “uh, how you say?”…but overall it’s smooth.

His teaching style is by example. He brings up a subject, then a personal example. It works really well and the class flows along nicely.

The subject, marketing, is fairly straight forward. We’ve been primarily focusing on Tour Operators vs. Travel Agencies…what is similar, what is different, what you use each one for. I’ve certainly learned a lot…and that’s a good thing.

The grading for the class is very similar to the rest of the classes. Two tests, both essays…and that is it. Attendance is taken but only counts towards your total of 60 hours that you are allowed to miss.

I really enjoy this class. During the break one of the students came back a bit late. The teacher said that he was probably smoking. He then sat down on one of the desks in the middle of the room and said this…

“I smoked for many years. I quit 5 years ago. You should all quit. My sex is much much better now.”

Gotta love it!

Food and Beverage:

This class I’m not as much a huge fan of. The teacher, a German woman in her early 50’s, struggles with English. Her word choices don’t quite make sense unfortunately. She’s pretty strict, but keeps the class involved with things.

Again the grading is similar to the rest…primarily testing and class participation.

For my Project I’m focused on the F&B bits…and I’ve got several questions to ask her. Hopefully I can get into a meeting with her during her office hours.

Spanish:

We’ve got a fairly young Argentinean teacher…who doesn’t speak English very well at all. But she’s nice, sweet, and friendly. The class is much smaller and pretty much all the students in it already have some Spanish skills so we are moving along fairly rapidly. She is one of the few teachers that assign homework…but it’s all pretty basic stuff. I like the class…and can tell that I am going to get a lot from it.

Facilities Management:

This one is very interesting…and is taught by a UK ex-engineer. He tends to focus a bit more on the engineering aspects of the facilities…but that’s not a problem at all. It’s nice having a teacher that is obviously well educated. Grading is considerably more complex with this class…in other words, very much like an American University….which I like. In this class we’ll be taking tours, watching movies, and getting lots of industry specific examples.

He’s another strict one…but that’s a good thing. He’s also got that rather dry British style humor…which makes me laugh but goes over the heads of some of the younger students.

Room Divisions:

Another German…and quite a good guy. His English is perfect, he’s efficient, outgoing and teaches the class very well. He’s always saying “And now Ladies and Gentlemen…” which puts a smile on my face.

He gave us the largest handout…which I will explain in greater detail later.

This is another good/interesting/useful class. I look forward learning more on this subject.

Economics:

Ah…Econ. I love it! The teacher, a Scot, is without a doubt the strictest of my teachers. I’m not quite sure what his background is but I think he’s a great guy…and takes absolutely NO crap from the students.

The subject matter is fairly easy (to me) but a lot of the students struggle with it. I’ve already done a bit of tutoring for a couple of my classmates. But again…more on that later.

Grading is the same…class participation and 2 tests. This one will be one of the more relatively “harder” classes.

Accounting:

The instructor for this class, from the UK, is also the head of the HOIII department. His wife teaches here and his son lives in the room above me. He’s a really nice guy, not too strict and definitely knowledgeable on his subject. He teaches the class very well and definitely makes it easy to understand.

Granted I do have a bit of an accounting background (hehe)…but I think the class is a breeze. However, most of the students DREAD this class…and have really been struggling with the concepts. Last session we worked on identifying fixed and variable costs using the High/Low, Scatter Diagram, and Regression Analysis methods. Being the absolute and total geek that I am I created a simple Excel document that does all the calculations for you…all you have to do is dump the numbers in. I’ve been getting a LOT of requests for help in this subject. Perhaps I could make a little money off it ;)

Human Resources:

Oddly enough I haven’t even had this class yet. Although I do have a set class schedule…there are little changes nearly every week (well…with only 2 weeks of classes…). Anyway he was sick for one session and the other sessions got bumped due to other things going on. We shall see!

Contemporary World Issues:

Currently we are in the International Relations section of this class…and I dig it a LOT. I’ve always been a bit of a Poly Sci fan so this is right up my alley. Sadly the vast majority of students in the class don’t care much for the subject. That’s too bad because this is all very good stuff to know.

I think that’s pretty much it for classes and teachers. Like I said, and as you can probably tell, things are different here. Each class has 3 50 minute sessions per week…with 2 of those sessions being back to back. The day is divided up into 8 “periods”…starting at 8 am and ending at 5:35 pm. There are two 15 minute breaks between classes and lunch is during the middle couple periods of the day. So in that regard classes are VERY high school like…bells and all that jazz. I kinda dig the consistency of it all…but it is rarely consistent it seems. Oh well.

All of the classes have books (of which I am still missing 3…they are on back order and it really pisses me off). Also, the majority of classes give handouts which are sort of “pre-notes”…in them they’ve got the subject matter for the day with lots of space between for you to take your own notes. Usually the teacher puts them up as transparencies on the overhead and lectures straight out of the notes. It makes studying and retention of the subjects very easy, and I kinda dig it.

Am I getting the education I wanted? Well…I’m not 100% sure honestly. I came here with some general ideas of what I “want to do” with my life…but nothing terribly concrete. If, for example, I wanted to work in a hotel/resort in some (nearly any) capacity…this school is perfect and I could do it straight after graduating. If I wanted to open my own restaurant…it’s a bit of overkill. If I wanted to be a chef then it is extreme overkill. I’m not quite sure what the BBA and MBA stuff entails…but it seems to be fairly similar to what I am doing…just ramped up considerably more, and still very focused on Hotel/Resort…but with more emphasis on different areas (Marketing, Finance or Management).

If any of you out there have more specific questions on the classes I’ll be happy to answer them for you.