Association Participation

I attended RTSAxMesa’s Virtual Escape Room on October 13th from 3:45 to 4:45 PM. This event provided an excellent opportunity to bond with fellow Payne School students, despite being in a time where it can be hard to unify people in the same organizations. Prior to attending the event, I researched RTSA and MESA’s goals and mission of their student organizations on the Payne School website. Their goals are to get students networking, working on interpersonal communication, and displaying an image of professionalism. These two clubs successfully came together to complete these groups of shared goals, leaving us attendees well-equipped with our leadership competencies. 

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To begin, this event provided us the perfect time to network with people within the hospitality industry. All of my fellow participants were in the major as well, and for most of them, it was the first time I had ever met any of them. When we went into our breakout rooms to do challenges, it provided the perfect amount of time to get to know each other and share what we plan to use our hospitality degrees toward post-graduation. By the end of the event, I had made eight new connections on Linkedin and felt, once again, like I was right back in the Adams Humanities courtyard. 

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This virtual escape room additionally provided the perfect exercises to practice interpersonal communication first hand. Instead of just working on the challenges together, my group learned a little bit about ourselves before starting. After doing this, we all understood each other a bit more, and a sense of trust and comfortability was established. Now, we were all more comfortable to shout out our ideas without fear of being judged. This ultimately made my team work really well together and our challenges all got done very quickly. I believe that utilizing this competency was a big factor into why my team finished in first place.

 

Although this event was marketed as a way to have fun, it also provided a time and place for all of us to practice our professionalism on a day to day basis. It is important, as a leader, to display an image of professionalism across all platforms when wanting to be taken seriously in the industry. The way the host of the event presented himself and his company through displaying his knowledge and confidence was very clear, as I immediately gained respect for who had put together what I had attended. I also was able to practice professionalism myself when interacting with my teammates. We all communicated in a manner appropriate for the event, valued everybody’s opinions, and displayed confidence in our own ideas. 

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This event drove me to be a part of something that benefitted me on my hospitality journey. It gave me hope that meetings and events are still possible in a time of a global pandemic. RTSA and MESA successfully provided a sense of unity among us attendees, where we came together to network, practice interpersonal communication, and display acts of professionalism.