Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

G.O.A.L.S.

Global Awareness

As a Hospitality Management major, I believe that having a worldly perspective and interacting with others who have different perspectives than my own is important. Therefore, I am aiming to further immerse myself in different cultures throughout my undergraduate career. I am planning to study abroad at some point during my four years at Ohio State. While I don’t have a concrete plan on when or where I will travel, I hope that through this experience I will learn more about the practices of another culture, especially as they pertain to hospitality. Through my study abroad experience, I hope to find some cultural aspect that will influence my view on hospitality and how I can best serve my internal and external guests.

I also hope to explore other cultures through some of my coursework. For example, next semester I am taking German 3353H, which focuses on important German figures such as Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud and their lasting impact on today’s society. I hope that this class is able to give me more of a worldly perspective on where certain ideas come from as well as their importance.

Original Inquiry

After reading a student thesis as a part of my survey class, I realized the importance and impact of student research. I specifically observed Kelsey Ring’s research on the Hospitality Program’s Big Dish event, and how such events should be created and improved around guest feedback and satisfaction. At some point in my undergraduate career, I hope to contribute to furthering Ring’s research, either in a formal or informal manner. OSU’s Hospitality program runs many other events, such as Hospitality Listens, and has the potential to start other annual events as well. I’d aim to focus my research on finding ways to improve Hospitality Listens specifically, based on observations at the event as well as guest feedback. Whether the resulting research becomes a thesis or is simply used as feedback to improve the impact, I hope that it would positively impact the event as well as the Hospitality Management program.

Academic Enrichment

My current and future curriculum pertains greatly to my end goal of working in the Hospitality Industry. I chose the Hospitality Management major because of my desire to serve others. Thus, I hope that through my major-specific classes that I will be able to better serve others and align myself with the practices of the industry. I also chose to complete a Business minor as it overlapped with the requirements of my major and contained many classes, such as accounting and business management, that I feel would be useful in my career. I aim to use my business minor to differentiate myself in the Hospitality field. I selected many of my GE courses, such as Classical Mythology and Economics, to give me a better view of how other disciplines cross over into Hospitality. While I didn’t expect to find such similarities at first, the content in these classes often reminds me of content that we discuss into my Intro to Hospitality class. In the future, I aim to find lessons that can tie back to my major in each of my classes, whether the class pertains to my major or not.

Leadership Development

Currently, I am involved in BuckeyeThon, Cru, and the Hospitality Management Association. While I have yet to reach a leadership position in any of these organizations, each of them has taught me wonderful lessons on how to be a leader, and has given me several people to look up to. My involvement in BuckeyeThon represents my aspiration to serve others, which I aim to do this year by raising at least $250 for children who need it. Cru has given me opportunities to grow intellectually through a further understanding of Christianity and the Bible. I aim to use this knowledge to enrich the lives of others, and potentially become a study leader for Cru. The Hospitality Management Association has allowed me to network and enrich myself in what my major represents. I aspire to assume a leadership role in the association in the coming years. I feel that my involvement in these three organizations has allowed for significant personal growth and understanding of who I am. I would describe myself as a situational leader, adapting my leadership style to best fit the specific situation I am working in.

Service Engagement

As I’ve discussed, the primary reason that I chose my Hospitality Management major is my desire to serve others, which is something I have always enjoyed at a young age. During high school, I participated in five summer mission trips, spending a week each year in a different part of the country. Each trip provided memorable experiences and lessons that I’ve carried with me to college. For example, on my trip to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, I found myself in a food desert for the first time in my life. Observing how this environment affected the Pine Ridge residents opened my eyes to the privilege I had, and how I could use it to better the lives of others. I hope to continue with mission work in college, likely through BUCK-I-SERV, so I can continue to acquire these lifelong lessons that are applicable to my career and daily life.

Career

[“Career” is where you can collect information about your experiences and skills that will apply to your future career.  Like your resume, this is information that will evolve over time and should be continually updated.  For more guidance on using your ePortfolio, including questions and prompts that will help you get started, please visit the Honors & Scholars ePortfolio course in Carmen. To get answers to specific questions, please email eportfolio@osu.edu. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Artifacts

Honors Thesis Review: “A Study of the Big Dish”

This thesis review of A Study of the Big Dish was one of the assignments I completed as a part of my honors survey class. I chose this specific thesis to review as it pertained to my major, Hospitality Management, and covers the Big Dish event, a dinner that is put on by the Hospitality Management program that I am likely to contribute to in the future. The thesis details the research conducted by Kelsey Ring and her peers covers the creation of the Big Dish event, as well as various measures taken to measure guest satisfaction to improve the event in the future. By conducting this thesis review, I was able to immerse myself in the intricacies of event planning and guest satisfaction, which are relevant to my major and future career. I was also introduced to the Big Dish event, an important part of OSU’s fundraising program that I’ll likely help to organize someday. I’ll use what I’ve gained from this experience to help plan and execute events, as well as focus on providing the best guest satisfaction possible when working in the hospitality field.

About Me

Hi there! My name is Zach King. I’m from Powell, Ohio, and am a first-year Hospitality Management major and Business minor. In my free time, I enjoy running, listening to music, and spending time with my friends and family. On campus, I am involved with BuckeyeThon, Cru, and the Hospitality Management Association. In my first year at OSU, I hope to become more social and meet new people, as well as establish myself in the Hospitality Management program.

I came to Ohio State in hopes of developing the skills to help other people and place a positive impact on the world. I have always cared deeply about others and have loved to help people. I hope that through my major curriculum and everything else that OSU has to offer, I will develop a Hospitality mentality and in all become a better person. In high school, I was most interested in my math, science, and digital art classes. While my major doesn’t necessarily focus around these disciplines directly, I hope to use the concepts behind them-logic, creativity, and flexibility, to name a few-towards my major-specific classes. I was heavily influenced by my film teacher during my senior year of high school, who encouraged me to focus less on the tools and technology I was using to create projects, and more on what I was aiming to create. I will aim to use this approach as I serve others in my career. As far as my goals academically, I aim to do the best I possibly can in my studies, while understanding that my “best” might not always equate to a high grade on an assignment or in a class.

In the Hospitality field, I am most interested in managing or working in a hotel or resort. More specifically, I’d enjoy working in the front-of-house in a position such as a front desk associate. In high school, I enjoyed working as a cashier and service desk associate at a retail store. Through helping guests with their requests and concerns, I was able to create positive experiences firsthand and put smiles on peoples’ faces, something I enjoyed greatly. Thus, I’d like to my career to revolve around making positive experiences for others. In this way, I hope to make a significant impact on the lives of many.

Beyond the Hospitality and Retail fields, I have always enjoyed serving others. In high school, I’d spend many Saturday afternoons helping those at a local “free store” find free clothing and a hot meal. Additionally, I’d go on a week-long mission trip each summer, traveling everywhere to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, to Phenix City, Alabama. Even though my work seemed insignificant to me, I was able to see the great impact it had on the communities I served. I hope to continue to serve others through mission work while at Ohio State, perhaps through an organization such as BUCK-I-SERV. I have already helped to better the Columbus community as an OSU student though Hospitality Listens, a special dinner for families with children on the Autism spectrum. I enjoyed working this event as I was able to see the positive impact I was able to put on the lives of children and their families. Therefore, I plan on assisting with this event in the future.