Hello everyone! I hope you had a nice and enjoyable weekend.

My last two weeks at Glion have been very interesting and exciting and I can honestly say that I feel more at home with every passing day.

To give you all a little bit of an inside look into life here on campus, I thought I would tell you something about my courses and the activities, which the university has to offer.

This first semester I have introduction to Food & Beverage, a course in Introduction to Hospitality Management, one in Information Technology(IT) and one in Personal Development and Academic Skills (PDAS). Throughout the semesters more courses will be introduced to our schedule though.

In Introduction to Food & Beverage we talk about, as you may have guessed, the main aspects of food and beverage preparation and service, such as different kitchen departments or issues regarding hygiene.

In Introduction to Hospitality Management, we have been assigned a group project on specific international corporations, such as Carnival Cruise lines or Hyatt, and in class we are learning a lot about the basics of the hospitality industry, which are really interesting and give you a first insight into the industry.

IT is a course about using Excel, Power Point and Office, which are obviously essential for our job in the hospitality field and in PDAS we are supposed to learn more about ourselves in order to be able to present ourselves better at interviews, for example. If you know who you are it is easier to find those jobs which are suited for you. So all in all, the first courses are really quite informative and well-suited to get a first impression of the workings of the hospitality industry. You should know though that within these classes and in school in general a lot of emphasis is put on group work, on a well-groomed appearance and also especially on punctuality, since some teachers even lock the door, if you are just as much as one minute late.

However this probably sounds worse than it is, because I can honestly assure you that these rules are easily followed and it is better to learn these skills now, rather than later, because they are some of the basic elements of the field.

Moving on to something more leisurely and enjoyable, I would like to tell you something about the different activities you can do at the university. I personally enjoy playing badminton, taking tango lessons and doing yoga, but sports such as basketball, volleyball or table tennis can also be found on campus. Furthermore there is also a gym here, which is very convenient, once you have figured out during which hours it is not completely full and also once you have figured out that the gym closes at 10 pm, so that you do not, like I had the great experience two days ago, stand on the stepper, when suddenly all of the lights go out around you.

Furthermore, many excursions are offered for the weekends, such as ice skating or tobogganing for instance and I will definitely take part in some of these as well and tell you about them first hand, once I have settled in a bit more.

I hope this gave you some useful information on what to expect from the curriculum during the first few weeks and I will keep you updated on any new occurrences.

I wish you all a great week and please wish me luck for my first exam on Wednesday!

Lea