Richmond upon Thames College (RuTC) Travel & Tourism and Business students have benefitted from some fabulous visitor talks over the last couple of weeks. This is part of our observance of Colleges Week and celebrating the brilliant opportunities we can provide for our students.
RuTC has developed a longstanding relationship with Hilton Hotel at Syon Park, Brentford in recent years and this month Hilton Group is celebrating Careers at Hilton Live. As part of the celebration, RuTC welcomed Hilton Group representatives to the college on 11 October to inform the relevant students on work experience opportunities available as well as part-time and seasonal jobs.
Last year some of our Catering students completed their work experience at the Hilton and a couple have been offered jobs and this year Hilton has agreed to consider Business, Travel & Tourism, and Plumbing students for work experience as well.
The event was attended by General Manager, Greg Crawford, Director of Operations, Cameron Townend, HR Manager, Sanchitha Uduwavidana and Erja Gunn from the Marketing team. They spoke about their career pathways and delivered a presentation on Hilton Hotel and the various opportunities available. The engaging presentation by the Hilton professionals evinced a lot of interest among the students and they expressed their excitement to try Hilton Hotel at Syon Park for their work experience later in the year.
RuTC, Work Experience Coordinator, Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay who organized the event commented:
“Employer engagement is a great opportunity to bring the employers at the doorstep of the students. It helps in expanding their imagination, enhancing their aspiration and adds to their knowledge base and experience. Hilton has always been supportive towards our students. The collaboration adds to the skills-set of our students and increases their chances of gaining meaningful work experience, which can also lead to employment. The hotel also benefits from an inflow of fresh faces and a steady stream of enthusiastic workforce.”
During w/c 16 October, our Travel & Tourism and Business students were visited by four RuTC alumni, Andrew Mitich-Holmes, Zahra Virmani, Amelia Poniewierska and Simran Kaur, who presented what they went on to do post college.
Three of the students went on to study relevant business degrees at prestigious universities, including London South Bank. Simran is currently in her third year of university and is completing a work internship at renowned professional services company, Ernst & Young. Andrew and Zahra have both now finished their studies and Andrew is working full-time as a Digital Marketing Officer at Royal Star & Garter. Amelia went straight into employment after college and works as a Travel Consultant for a successful Travel Management company, Blue Cube. A role she acquired through employer connections at RuTC.
This was a fantastic opportunity for our current students to gain knowledge and support for their futures and ask questions to recent student alumni, who had been sitting in the student's exact shoes only a couple of years ago.
It was inspiring to hear these stories and the different journeys taken to reach individual goals. Travel & Tourism Lecturer Hannah Talabany, who arranged the speakers, expressed how “proud” she was to see her past students succeeding and speaking so confidently about their chosen career paths.
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