Event Planning & Public Speaking

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Through my experience as a pledge in Alpha Kappa Psi, I really grew in my event planning and public speaking skills. In my role as Vice President of Administration I designed and hosted a Public Speaking Workshop for 40 pledges. Throughout the two hours we were together we focused on building confidence and eliminating the common issues people have when presenting. One success story that came of the event was that one of my pledge brothers, who was terrified of public speaking and was relatively shy in general, agreed to participate in the Confidence Activity of the workshop. Over the past several semesters she has grown so much in her public speaking which helped her secure a position as a Vice President of our chapter.

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I also had the opportunity to organize several fundraisers for our pledge class including a volleyball tournament and karaoke night. By coordinating my team members and focusing on each individual's strengths, we were able to surpass our fundraising goal by nearly $150. 

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Customer Service & Team Building

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Customer service has been central to all of the summer jobs, student jobs, and internships I have held over the past four years. My first job was at Busch Gardens in their Admissions department. From time to time, I would also work in Guest Relations. This past summer I interned with Hillstone Restaurant Group as a Management Intern. And from these experiences, and all of the experiences in between, I learned some very important lessons about customer service, the first of which is that you always want to leave your customers with an experience that draws them back again. This means going above and beyond to ensure they have an experience at your establishment unlike any other. At Hillstone this meant timely service with little disruption to what frequently were special occasion meals or business meetings. At the Holiday Inn this meant providing quick responses and mediation to any questions or issues that a guest had when planning their event or stay.

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Throughout my experience at Hillstone I also developed an understanding for the importance of team building. This is especially important in the restaurant industry considering that guests can have a much more positive experience if all of your waitstaff work together instead of fending for themselves and their own tables. As an intern I rotated through the various functions in the restaurant including: hostess, server, bartender, manager, and a variety of kitchen staff roles. As a manager it was valuable to have this hands-on experience in order to understand the daily challenges my staff faced. This allowed to me to solve problems for them and the restaurant more efficiently, but it also allowed me to get to know each of the more personally and develop a system of teamwork.

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