In my very odd Human Resources class (I’ll babble about the whole HR situation later…once we’ve gotten a little more resolution…)…anyway, in this class we have been focusing a lot on pay in the hotel/restaurant industry lately.

And as my teacher would say, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the outlook is not good.”

Some of the students here…actually, the vast huge majority of them, think that once you graduate from this school there will be hundred thousand dollar job offers banging down your door.

I’ve got friends of mine talking to me about working at Hotel X and Hotel Y and “wow, the GM/CEO/owner gets paid so much!”

But they don’t quite realize that there is some work involved here.

Today in HR we were getting more specific into pay scale. The teacher was talking about some semi-typical starting pay rates for various positions. The class was fairly animated and talkative, and one of the students asked the teacher, “Well, how much will we be making? Surely more than that, no?”

The answer…

“You will probably be making less.”

Silence. I could hear a water faucet running somewhere in the building it was so quiet.

To make a long story short, the students here…they are under the impression that a simple education will gain you tremendous income. As the teacher went on to describe how junior managers have to do all the dirty work, the grunt work, the awful hours, the fairly low pay, before they have demonstrated their abilities and paid their dues…the students had a look of terrible fear in their eyes. Hell, a tear may have fallen somewhere in that class.

A lot of the kids here have the easy life. This school…Ladies and Gentlemen this school is VERY easy. There is very little of it that is truly a challenge…not just for me, but for anyone willing to put in a little effort. And what you gain out of it is the basis for a career…not the career itself.

And that is going to be a bitter pill for some of these people to swallow.

Accounting
As many of you know already, I did accounting for several years before starting this whole culinary/restaurant/hotel gig. Man…looking back on it I did accounting for something like 7 years (off and on). Yow! Time flies I guess.

Anyway, I really enjoy this class. The teacher, Mr. Small, is the head of HOIII and without a doubt knows his stuff. He follows the book more or less, but does a really good job of being linear in his lectures. We start with the basics and move forward…each prior step providing knowledge on how to do the next ones. I can tell that, if choose to, the tests could be very difficult…at least from the standpoint if you mess something up in the beginning your end answer is going to be way off.

Perhaps the biggest reason I dig this class is because I am finally getting some schooling on something I have a lot of experience in. I never took real accounting classes…I learned by observing, practicing and asking questions. It took a lot of experimentation to get to the level I got in the whole financial analysis world…and I’m grateful to getting that much needed knowledge.

Plus, it’s pretty damn easy!

Marketing
There are two huge reasons why I really enjoy this class. One, the teacher is awesome. He’s alive, vibrant, and full of knowledge and really takes charge in the class. He lets enough funny stuff slide to keep us from falling asleep, and isn’t afraid to call stupid students…well…stupid. I absolutely love it.

Secondly, I’m really learning a lot in this class. This is all stuff that I had never studied before, and had no experience in prior. I’ve perhaps learned the most from this one class…and there is a lot more to be gained too.

It isn’t too hard either ;)

Economics
This pretty much falls in line with Accounting, with a combo of Marketing. It’s another strong teacher who doesn’t take crap from students, it’s giving me knowledge in a subject I have prior experience with, and I’m learning a tremendous amount. It’s a bit more challenging than the other two favorites, but that is a good thing…I shouldn’t just walk through this whole thing, ya know what I mean?

Later on I’ll go through my lesser favorites…and then the classes I dislike.