Words Don't Paint a Picture

While the first day of class felt like a slap in the face, I felt like everything was going to mesh perfectly for my schedule.

For our first lecture and lab of the day, we were untaught by Mark McCarthy on Microsoft Word. The focus with utlizing business tools like Microsoft Office revolved around being "efficient and effective." We dug deep into the unknown functions of using Word from setting up boxes and borders to fixing up proper indentation. I am a shameful abuser of constantly using the spacebar, indentation key, and the enter key to get text in the way I strive to make it become. But Mark helped show us the proper way to do everything so that our memos appear professional and clean. While it may not be as simple as simply hitting Return, it certainly makes everything on the paper look so polished, and in the end, first impressions always make a difference.

Prior to our second class lecture, my group in class was taught by Reneta McCarthy in an introduction into the CHESS program that simulates a hotel. For our specific simulation, the hotel is a luxury 250-room lodging facility with no food & beverage factor added in. She taught us how to change rates, how to close rates, how to manage expenses, and how they can play a part in your hotel's revenue. We were also assigned a memo to explain our strategies for our CHESS Hotel on Friday and she has suggested that we be as creative and imaginative as we can as the simulation is not visually appealing. I have already started a game plan, thinking that the first factor I will monitor within my hotel is to block out the lowest rates available so that I can get more money from the more expensive rates. However, the lowest rates will not be completely closed off as they will be reserved exclusively for patrons that come in a group so that I still can attract all three types of hotel customers (business, leisure, and group).

For my office hours, I decided to get to the computer lab early since there is no time to complete anything else before then. Looking at the sky resulted in flashing bolts of lightning behind the clouds. The thunder was tremendously loud and rain began to pour in a sudden manner. Even despite an umbrella, my shoes and pants were absolutely wet, but through rain and shine, I managed to get to my office hours early so that I could get straight to working on my assignments. My four-member group and I had to compose our own memo to explain our rules and guidelines within our groups, and I spearheaded that project. I managed to get reading done on a narrative written by Donald Trump himself. He explained the story behind how his property on 42nd Street came to fruition and it was definitely a good read, explaining his struggles behind getting tax alterations and financing to getting the Hyatt to manage the hotel.

Everyone always argue behind whatever study method they think is the best. Some go for highlighting text while others believe that writing down actual notes is the victor. Because I have exclusively taken notes already, I thought it would be nice to just highlight different points for once. Many people have their own personal ways of studying, but a synthesis of taking good notes while highlighting important passages has become a very effective studying method for reading material. And to think that there are thousands of ways to properly read and understand the text assigned!