REFLECTIVE LEARNING - VONNY - FOOD SERVICE PROJECT PLANNING AND ENGINEERING

In this entry, I'd like to reflect about myself for the subject that I have done in my last semester, it is Food Service Project Planning and Engineering. Before I learned this at the first week and saw the name of the subject in portal, I thought it would be theory class which does not have practical. However, by the time it goes by, I just knew there would be a practical class for learning an AUTOCAD. I ever heard about Autocad but never learned how to operate it. Then the time is coming, I got this subject in my last semester.

The challenges that I faced when did my assignment was to think how to put the equipment at the right place hence the service and kitchen workers' working flow will be effective and efficient, which was also learned how to be an engineering and architect at the same time, whereby I needed to think the thick,width, and height of the equipment, the distance between one equipment to others, whereby the distance is sufficient for the workers to stand or work within that distance, therefore in the drawing, the measurement should be more and less accurate to the realistic, which was very hard. Another difficulty was during the test and assignments,during the test I could not operate autocad proficiently, the time given was not enough to fulfill the requirements asked and many points missed on my work. 

Below picture is the kitchen design drawing that I and my group did.

For the assignment difficulties, since the project was the group project so I could overcome it by discussing it together and think about the best option to put our equipment on the paper, and think intelligently how the common kitchen should be. Besides, to overcome the challenges in test, I have asked my friend to teach me how to operate it, what the shortcuts commands to be used, watch tutorials from youtube, did the assignments from the online website (www.we-r-here.com-Thank you to this website, I could practice the tutorials) few times, and did the trial. At the day of my test, I tried my best to do all the main requirements first and speed up my pace on doing it. However, it was still hard to settle the test and I was only able to complete half of it. Therefore, to prevent this failure, I might do a lot more practice on autocad, and watching on youtube how to operate it well.

Apart of these difficuties, I felt that i might performed well in the drawing part, because I could do some discussion with the lecturer before submit the work too, and the time given was longer than the Autocad test which was only 3 hours whereby the thinking and doing the autocad in one shot which was very hard for me becasue even for thinking the good flow for my kitchen design will not be that fast. 

The skills that I got from this subject was the communication skill, thinking and problem solving skills, interpersonal skills, and digital literacy. The communication skill that I got from this subject because doing the project in a group shaped my communication skills on how to shout out my opinion in a proper way, and accepting people's opinion, or perhaps when I did not agree with their opinion, I tried to use polite words that was mindful. It was useful for my future career because working with people or even do business, I need a proficient skill in communication to communicate with the colleagues, supervisors, and even my customers to persuade them buy our products. Without a good communication skill, I might lose my future customers. 

Another skill that I got which is the problem solving skill, this is the most important skill I must have for my future career. My problem solving skill shaped when doing the tutorial in class, do assignment and even the test. There were several times that we need to do calculation to get a more and less measurement for our equipment size, and amount of the equipment needed for this sum of people. Because too much of equipment will need more money and if it is not necessary, the cost will be too high. Therefore, before do the drawing, the good planning of the amounts of equipment need to serve the customers are important. 

I got the interpersonal skill also from the group project, because it relates to how I can place myself within the group, and communicate with my groups. If I can examine myself, I am a team player in my group. I will do input and also a good listener. Because in the future career, being a team player is a good thing because I can do a work with other people, not only doing alone, and in the hospitality field, working with other people is the requirement. Every job in this field will have a relation with people. In addition, I believe that to satisfy the customers, the one-person job will not give them a magic moment, but with a group of people and working well, that magic moment could be felt by guests.

Last but not least, I felt that I improved my digital literacy skill, which I got by learning autocad. I was basically a nerd to technology, I learned photoshop, microsoft, video maker, multimedia, but I never touched autocad before this semester. I never expected that autocad will be hard compare to other application that I used to play with. However, I believe that if I learn autocad longer and play with it longer than I had in this semester, I could do well with it, and at least got to know 20% of operating it which make my work easier. However, I think that this skill will help my future career, because I have planned to own business which I might use this knowledge to build my kitchen design and restaurant design, or at least, I can talk with my designer about my ideas and with this basic knowledge I can cut the cost because I know what I need to get efficient and effective in my kitchen.

I was actually so excited to learn a new thing such Autocad and this new subject, Food service project planning. Although, in my opinion, it was not an important thing to learn autocad for culinary student, but on the other side, it was a good thing too, because it means we are helped to have a basic knowledge on building our own business, so when the time come, we will have a picture on how to deal with the design and engineering our kitchen. I think because at first I was excited, so for the first few weeks I enjoyed this subject.

However, frankly speaking, I did not like the class that start and end the class at late afternoon and early of the evening. It was so tiring to wait 3 hours just for a half and hour class, and my mood to study at evening was totally different with the morning time. It was hard to absorb the subject because my concentration has divided to go home early and listen on the lecturer. It would be better if the class is moved to other days and allocated at the morning time or earlier time than 6 pm. In addition, there were several times when I was actually want to ask with the lecturer about what I have doubt about, but because I need to walk to my house, and it was going to dark, I did not have any chance to ask about my doubt and I just left home as fast as I could.

If I rated my performance, I would rate 7. Because I was not so good in autocad but I was not that blur, I still could catch up the  progress and did the tasks, but I might need more time to figure out than other friends. As my learning type is more to practical basis and hands-on, so I believe if I had more time to practice, I could  rate myself better. Another reason I rated my self 7 was the weakness of my problem solving skill, because I am not good on placing the equipment that would build a good flow and not bring a big problem in the design. I did have an idea but sometimes I did not think far for example the distance between the equipment, or the necessary of the equipment that I might forgot to put inside my drawing, therefore I rated my self 7. 

In conclusion, I actually might enjoy this subject, but the limit time and the allocation of the class time that was not so good to study, made me not enjoy this subject much. In addition, I would not consider my career on kitchen planning or engineering, it was good enough for me to get the basic and idea how it goes, but not for my career. I would hate my career life if I took planning and design as my career. Because I do not have passion on it, and it will be torturing to do it every day.