Today was our last day of class before we leave for Ireland on Monday, which is super exciting! We started the day by visiting The Oaklander, which is a hotel right down the street from us. We learned a lot of valuable information regarding the hospitality industry and how its business came to be. Something I found fascinating about the hospitality industry is how fast-paced and active it is to work in. You aren’t just stuck behind a desk each day and are actively serving other people and making their experience valuable.

We then took a trip down to Lawrenceville, which was an extremely interesting neighborhood. We first stopped at Ice House, where we heard from the Lawrenceville Committee about how the neighborhood functions from a business development perspective. One of the most interesting factors I found was that they really value keeping the local feel and promoting small, local businesses. This relates to our consulting project in Carrigart because they have high values in the local small-town feel.

After that, we walked to the co-working space, Field Day, which was a very unique experience. This was the first time I had ever been inside a co-working space, and this one in particular is focused on being a space for everyone and promoting and incorporating local businesses into their amenities. They have a coffee shop and bar on the first floor, and they also allow for events and such to be held on the rooftop of the building. As a company, they value the hospitality aspect and want their customers to have an extremely personable experience. The information learned in this session was extremely helpful and will be especially useful since me and my team are working the the co-working space, Gteic, in Carrigart.

We headed to lunch and then continued to roam and shop around in Lawrenceville, specifically in cute vintage shops. We had an extremely exciting day and are ready to head into Ireland on Monday and apply our experiences to real world projects.