End-of-course reflection covering career relevance, course materials and assignments, personal experience, suggestions for improvement, and final thoughts.
Career relevance
I took this course as an elective because I have a passing familiarity with events. I worked for a year in Disney's events department (just a part time cast member), and I've been to many events.
I never saw them as a guest experience kind of thing. The experience I have had shows me guests and organizers as separate entities with very little interaction. Sure there are surveys that ask attendees their thoughts, but that usually happens well after.
So I came into the course with the thought that I'd never want to do an event. The logistics sounds fun, and I love logistics, but in my 3rd career here (first teacher, then software developer), I want to focus on the guests. I want to have strong guest interaction. The reason I transferred out of the Disney Convention Guide role was because I had very little guest interaction.
But the course has shown me that there is still some fun to be had, and there are plenty of opportunities, if one makes them, to be guest facing. The owner of the business Go For Ari, one of the industry insight interviews, described her job as considering event speakers as guests to work with. I kind of like that.
So there is opportunity, and it might be fun to find a niche inside this industry, like Go For Ari, that provides exceptional guest experience, enhancing the vacation of my guest. I might just look into how one can be a guest provider in this industry.
Course materials and assignments
The book was standard issue textbook describing this industry. So that was fine. But articles, the interviews, and the extensive research I had to do for the assignments gave me more insight into this. I always tried to bend the assignment or research to shine light on guest experience.
The assignments were extremely thorough. In my opinion, one of them could really be an entire course project. Even though they were a lot of work, they showed me new insights about this industry.
Experience
I did enjoy the industry insights. That was pleasant to listen to folks in the industry sharing how they got there and what they do. Again, I tried to think through how their experience helps me see how guest interaction could be a big part of a job. There were bits here and there in each.
As I mentioned above, the assignments were a lot of work, and, given busy schedules, I often didn't start them until the week of. I wish I had started them well before. I didn't enjoy the content of the assignment because I had to rush to get them done.
Suggestions for improvement
I have suggestions:
- Highlight each assignment at the beginning of the semester, point out its purpose and what we should gain from it, and suggest a plan to get them done over time. Multiple assignments going together could work and do more to enhance our understanding if we start them sooner.
- Since this is a hospitality course, find ways to highlight that aspect in the course. Point out how it is different and challenge us to think of ways to make sure the guest experience is great; give us a chance to find ways to think of 'magical moments' for these attendees.
- In my opinion, the tests, not allowing us to revisit questions, is a bad way to present a test. Common test taking strategies say to skip ones you don't know and come back to them. I think I get the reason from a Webcourses sort of way: sometimes similar questions appear in a student's quiz. But really I'd err on the side of letting people use proper test-taking strategies.
Final thoughts
I think the course has inspired me to think of events as logistical challenges, which I do enjoy. But the course also challenged me to find ways to think and implement great guest-experience strategies.