The World Economic Forum also claims that young people, particularly students, are concerned about the possibility that their career choices will become obsolete in the job market after they complete their studies. It is usually advisable for students to critically evaluate their career options before deciding to pursue them. The purpose of the career evaluation is to reduce the possibility of encountering even more complicated obstacles throughout the later phases of the course. The following paper, on the other hand, is a self-reflective report on my decision to pursue a BA in hospitality management as a career route.
Among the major challenges confronting this generation’s learners is the volatile nature of the business environment, which makes accurate future predictions difficult. The other significant challenge is related to financial concerns, as well as job market uncertainties facilitated by the fear of failure. It is reasonable to conclude that no one can predict what the world and job landscape will look like in the next ten or more years. According to statistics, nearly 40% of workers are concerned that their jobs will be rendered obsolete (Avram, 2022). Another study cited by the World Economic Forum contends that the skills gap will continue to be wide across a variety of occupations.in the next five years. According to this study, the top skill groups that employers will be looking for in the next five years are critical thinking, problem solving, and self-management abilities (World Economic Forum, 2020). This means that active earning, higher levels of resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility will be at the forefront of employment in the coming years.
Contrary to my original preconceptions, I discovered that hotel management is not only a pleasant but also a difficult subject. By the end of the foundation year, I had accumulated a substantial amount of experience in my chosen field. I had no idea that hospitality is such a broad subject that demands knowledge of English and communication, food production, food beverage, housekeeping, front office administration, bookkeeping, business law, food science and nutrition, and many other topics.
Traditional considerations and social media, according to Lee et al. (2019), are the key elements that impact students’ decisions to customize their career pathways towards hotel management. Communication was one of the subjects I studied in the early stages of the course. Communication as a topic taught me that it is not as easy as it is commonly characterized as the exchange of ideas and information from one location to another. Other crucial and yet unnoticed aspects of communication that I had not considered previously. With a slew of unforeseen concerns, I must say that I encountered a number of difficulties when researching this topic.
Aside from the various obstacles experienced with my specialty field, there were a lot of intriguing things related to it. As previously indicated, my foundation year’s specialty topic was communication. According to Malhorta (n.d), communication is the most important tool in the hospitality industry. The way we connect with others is an everyday aspect of our lives that we have mainly ignored. I realized that, just as we rely on communication in all parts of our personal lives, we also rely heavily on it in our professional lives. Effective communication affects every layer of a company’s process, efficacy, and efficiency. It was a nice surprise to learn how important communication is in expressing and presenting new ideas.
Communication skills will also be useful when making plans and proposals throughout the study’s many phases. Communication also aids in decision making and execution, particularly in the professional sector, which includes the hospitality business. Because the hotel industry entails relationships with people from all over the world, we rely on communication to establish agreements. The most difficult problem I found when researching this topic was determining how to manage communication methods from varied cultural backgrounds, given that communication differs from one another.
With regard to the BA pathways, it took me no time to explore BA in hotel management. There are a lot of factors to justify my choice for hospitality, especially when compared to the other options. I’ve always wanted to engage with people from other cultures throughout the world and learn about them since I was a youngster. With a profession in hospitality, I can live and work anywhere in the world (Dopson et al., 2020). Living and working in various countries would help me achieve my goals because I would be able to learn about diverse cultures and ways of life. Furthermore, a job in hotel management would allow me to engage with people from all over the world who share my interests.
Since my foundation year, I’ve learnt a range of skills that will help me progress professionally, even to the latter stages. Since then, I’ve gained expertise and experience in crucial areas of business, management, and creative disciplines such as design and media. I’ve also honed my talents in marketing, communication, and branding, as well as exploration and visual culture. However, I still need to work on my cross-cultural communication abilities. According to Klein et al., (2019), Communication across different cultures is a major yardstick for success in the progression of any cross culturally related career and therefore thus this course. Inability to effectively communicate across different cultures indicates failure with reference to this career path.
In conclusion, people have different aspirations with reference to career choices and opportunities. The major consideration is usually the possibility of converting the career choice into a mechanism of earning a living. I can also back my argument with the flock of students in the job promising courses across UK. Careers with less reduced possibilities of employment are usually less crowded.
References
Avram, S. (2022). Unstable jobs and time out of work: evidence from the UK. Socio-Economic Review.
Dopson, L. R., Lee, P. C., Lee, M. J., & Lara, A. (2021). Perceived importance of career engagement initiatives in hospitality education. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, 1-9.
Klein, H. A., Lin, M. H., Miller, N. L., Militello, L. G., Lyons, J. B., & Finkeldey, J. G. (2019). Trust across culture and context. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 13(1), 10-29.
Lee, P. C., Lee, M. J., & Dopson, L. R. (2019). Who influences college students’ career choices? An empirical study of hospitality management students. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education, 31(2), 74-86.
Malhotra, S. Role of Communication Skills in Hospitality Industry. Hospitality Management Education in India, 77.
World Economic Forum. (2020, October). The future of jobs report 2020. Geneva, Switzerland: World Economic Forum.
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