Today was our final class with Professor Jones 🙁 It started in an interesting way though.
I reached Sennott Square and he’s saying, “We’re going to the Oaklander! Put your things in my office!” So we went to the Oaklander! There we met with Theresa Murdoch, and she told us a lot about what it’s like to work in a hotel!
Their location opened in February 2019, and they made it through the pandemic by continuing to work harder even through the cuts. We learnt a lot about how check out times affect the scheduling of the hotel; if someone checks out later then the cleaning staff needs to work more quickly before the next guests come, or they need to come later especially when certain special guests come as part of their rewards who get a later check out time by the time check-in time begins that day. They also only get 20-30 minutes to clean a room if the guest/s are staying in it for another day, and they have to continuously adjust to the schedule and change it per day, so it’s important for someone in that environment to be flexible and good at improvising. There’s also a new pizza restaurant opening there on the first floor!
Then we returned to class while Dr. Jones gave us his final lesson to move forward with our work in Ireland and life in business.
I had lunch with a few of my classmates/friends before moving on with the day, and it was delicious!
We then went back to Sennott Square to go to Lawrenceville, where we went to the IceHouse and met with a representative of the Lawrenceville Corporation, Kara. She told us about the history of the Corporation and the area, and its progression throughout the years. It is a small town much like Carrigart, so we found some ideas we could possibly discuss for there!
We stopped for ice cream afterwards at Millie’s before progressing to a co-working space!
We met Zach and Emi from Field House at their location, and their office is amazing! Zach told us a lot about the risks and decisions that entrepreneurs have to face when leasing a new place for their businesses, and the community & hospitality aspect of working in a co-working space! Emi gave us a tour of their space, they have a lot of conference and breakout rooms apart from their very spacious and comfortable common area, both on the second and third floors! We visited their roof as well, where we could see a lot of Pittsburgh, it was a wonderful view. Emi told us about how they host events like happy hours, parties, and even weddings there.
After the tour, we met up with Bruce who led us through the streets of Lawrenceville to dinner, who was incredibly conversational and fun to talk to!
After dinner, we walked through the streets of Lawrenceville for a bit more before returning to Sennott Square and then to the dorms (after a brief stop at the thrift store!)
It was a very long day, but filled with fun! Tomorrow, we go to the Pirates game!
