Like an article "It's midsummer now" written by me 1 1 for the school admissions office, I came to the hot southern city of the United States, which means that my whole study abroad life will be in midsummer. It's the twelfth month. Not long ago, the first snow in Beijing swept the circle of friends. Yesterday, the first snow in Hangzhou told me that on the other side of the earth, winter came. At this time, I am still wearing shorts and hiding in an air-conditioned Starbucks to type this text. I gradually found that I had become familiar with American life by accident.
Until recently, there were still many younger brothers and sisters with my shadow, curious to ask me all kinds of questions about studying abroad and Miami. Of course, the most frequently asked question is why I chose hotel management and FIU as my major.
I know that the answer to the word "fate" is a little too perfunctory and artificial. Actually, that's the answer, but I've been busy with all kinds of things, big and small, and I can't answer them. Just recently, I met a little bottleneck at work and thought of this problem. At least I have an explanation.
Two years ago, when we applied to go abroad, there were three cooperation projects for our 2+2 dual undergraduate programs, namely Purdue University in Indiana, Wu, Stout University in Wisconsin, and FIU in Florida.
From the name alone, Florida International University is the least well-known name, which sounds particularly fake, so it is difficult to find it in the comprehensive ranking list. But at that time, among the Chinese workers who went abroad, the students who came to FIU accounted for the vast majority.
I don't know what other people think or what I think, but at least I know what I don't want.
First of all, strategic measures and long-term planning have been made for the construction of new socialist countryside. As a student of the tertiary industry, I don't need to visit and study in the areas where the primary industry of capitalism is relatively developed. In short, I came to America to see the world, and I will come to big cities in the future. This is the primary reason why I chose Miami.
Pay equal attention to study, which is work and life. I ask myself, I am not a so-called "research talent". In other words, I learn these things in the hope of having on-the-spot knowledge and practice. Only by choosing the right position can I get such a thing. As a world-famous tourist city, Miami is not only the home port of many luxury cruise companies, but also a treasure house rich in tourism and human resources. Casinos, nightclubs and hotels of major brands are booming here, and they entertain tourists from all over the country and even all over the world every year ... Anyway, it is right to have more.
Since there are so many things related to this industry here, there are naturally many opportunities for internship and knowledge, so the benefits are self-evident compared with living in a wheat field and living in a remote town where birds don't shit. There are many choices when you go to play, such as gun shops, shooting ranges, skydiving centers, Disney and Universal Studios, blue swimming pools with blue sky and blue sea ... No, there are many bars and nightclubs (including 18+ strip club), and even restaurants serving morning tea! Two of the top ten best shopping centers in America are in this area, surfing, fishing, camping and so on. By the way, at the southernmost tip of the United States, the Florida Keys, where the independence farce of "Conch and China" is staged, is also here, with the presidential palace, naval base and Hemingway's former residence, only a few dozen miles away from Cuba.
I didn't ask you to play with these lists! Ahem, I mean, you will have more choices when you come to work, but you will earn sparkling dollars!
Second, it's time to talk about the school after location. Although it occasionally appears in domestic materials, it will not be introduced too much. When I came here, I found that this public school approved by the Ministry of Education of China has as many as six campuses. There are two in Miami, one in the Submarine Research Center of Florida and one in the campus of Tianjin, China.
The top four schools in the national liquor management major have their own advantages. The first standard of professional teaching is naturally the coverage of its professional courses and the scope of cooperative enterprises. I have to explain to the children who are going to choose this major and the parents who have misunderstandings in advance what is the hotel management major. In China, our major in South China University of Technology is called Tourism Management, although we focus on the hotel industry to a great extent in education. Many parents associate tourism management with the profession of tour guide. But in fact, the English name of this major is Hospitality Management, and the Chinese translation should be hospitality service Management, which covers luxury cruise ships, casinos, restaurants, hotels, tourism, exhibitions, resorts and clubs, red wine and other fields. And these sub-fields can be learned in the professional courses of the school.
The difference between professors in our school and many professors in China is that they have rich industry experience in addition to the necessary high academic qualifications. Therefore, when teaching students, there is also a lot of knowledge that I have summed up from practice, and even the lessons and experiences of failure are among them. In a luxury food and beverage management course I attended, our professor was also the CEO of his company. Our final exam is to let students plan and operate the whole charity auction dinner for 300 people, from auction to catering supply to planning and marketing.
Then let me list the names of most courses I have taken in FIU for two years:
1. Tourism destination marketing (I wrote a marketing plan with a budget of $5 million for tourism promotion in Nicaragua);
2. Management accounting (made many reports for advanced courses of basic accounting courses);
3. Financial analysis (about some financial market products and derivatives);
4. Marketing strategy (the final project is to select an international company's marketing strategy positioning for limited time display);
5. Restaurant management (Professor used to be the regional manager of new york T.G.I.Friday, the founder of the largest organic food sales website in China, and his wife initiated and operated the national wine competition);
6. Reception service law (analyzing some unexpected and industry-related litigation cases from the perspective of a lawyer, and the final project is to defend a case on behalf of the plaintiff and the defendant);
7. Revenue management (analyze profit data, and use the opposite method to control costs to increase profit space and manage these surpluses. The final project is to analyze the profit space and business strategy of regional competitors by using the data of STR, the world's top revenue management company.
8. Bulk purchasing and menu engineering (focusing on the catering industry, the former mostly deals with suppliers, and the latter is how to use psychology and marketing knowledge to show products to guests, effectively improve profit margins and control costs. Teaching methods are also innovative. Students spend time in class thinking about how employees, including suppliers, cheat and steal the property of restaurants. Only when they know how to steal can they know how to prevent it.
9. Hotel Facilities Management (the course basically belongs to engineering, but because it is a liberal arts major, it only requires a general understanding of the engineering structure of a building, such as electricity, ventilation, shock absorption and so on. , and a preliminary understanding of the principle, including elevator system and air conditioning system, as well as emergency escape and refuge. );
10. International cooking (practice class … was commented as "American New Oriental" in the circle of friends, and practiced cooking in North Africa, the Caribbean, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, the Middle East and Scandinavia in the kitchen, and held a dinner party in groups. We organized a French dinner and arranged it at the venue provided by the school.
1 1. luxury cruise management (class grouping, representing several major international luxury cruise companies, each company studied deeply after class, and the final project was to show the company on stage within a limited time);
12. On-site catering management (that is, the overbearing president I mentioned above is a professor's luxury wedding banquet and birthday banquet catering planning);
In addition, the school also has red wine business class, red wine beer brewing teaching class, and wine tasting class in class, but I haven't chosen yet.
After these brief course introductions, you can also see the available facilities of the school. In the college building of our college, it is necessary to provide a hardcover restaurant with bar kitchen for students to hold dinner, as well as baking room, beer brewing teacher, red wine classroom and testing laboratory, red wine storage room, multimedia classroom with different functions and decoration styles, computer room, college carnival center with billiards table (table football and X-BOX in the school lounge), library and so on.
As for schools, there are health departments that can make appointments for massage, as well as gymnasiums, restaurants, beaches, rocking chairs and so on. It is a small campus with beautiful environment, which can basically be said to be designed for the Wine Management College.
There are also many internship channels in the school, such as luxury cruise companies, major international hotels, restaurant chains, Disneyland and so on. The professor in our class took the time to show us the presidential suite and backstage facilities of the Intercontinental Hotel, as well as the Hard Rock Casino Hotel, LIV, the most profitable nightclub in America, and so on.
At school, I had the honor to know my professor's wife, and participated in the organizing committee of the 5th National Wine Competition where she worked as an assistant, helping to contact the participating wineries, attract sponsorship and plan the operation dinner. In addition, SOBE, the largest beach feast in the United States, is held in South Miami Beach every February. As a full-time co-organizer, our school co-ordinated all the positions of student volunteers and transferred more than 300 volunteer operation systems by itself, which promoted the success of the whole banquet in all directions. I was lucky to get a scholarship in this activity.
In the first year, in addition to winning the prize in the school photo contest, I was lucky enough to attend the internal celebration banquet of students and school leaders and won the only high achiever award in each grade of the school. I feel very honored.
During the long vacation, I went to new york for the New Year and spent spring break in Mexico City, Guanajuato and Cancun. I plan to spend Christmas in go on road trip, California and Spring Festival in Cuba this year. Life can be interesting if you want.
One more thing, many people think that people studying abroad must be rich second generation, but this is not the case. The students around us are basically working hard somewhere. This is a realistic country. As long as you work hard, you will get something. Diligent and thrifty, I am fully capable of paying my living and traveling expenses in the United States. It's simple.
That's about it this time. Maybe next time, I think of something interesting to share with you. If you want to know more about me, or about the United States, about studying in the United States, please pay attention to the upcoming 20 16 "Studying in a Mystery Story" ~
Above. Best wishes.