FIU hospitality grads stay hopeful about future
It was the beginning of the spring semester at Florida International University. Hospitality student Vanessa Gonzalez had only two classes left to finish before graduation.
All that hard work will pay off when I walk across that stage and receive my diploma, she thought.
Her next steps were planned out. She’d earn some money as a front desk agent at the Loews Hotel on South Beach, then start the Disney College Program in Orlando this summer. The DCP gives participants the opportunity to gain job experience working in Disney parks and resorts.
Everything seemed to be going well for Gonzalez, but then came the pandemic. Her acceptance into Disney College was rescinded, and she was put on furlough; her job at the Loews is now in jeopardy. With a degree in hospitality management that she can’t immediately use, Gonzalez is going back to the drawing board.
“It was really tough for me mentally,” she said. “I had it all lined up. I was about to graduate and it was all perfect, then everything changed.”
Gonzalez is one of 167 students who graduated this past spring from Florida International University’s Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism, one of the nation’s top programs. Like thousands of other graduates, they didn’t get a regular graduation ceremony. But these students suffered a more consequential strike: With the hospitality industry
shut down, millions of jobs have disappeared — meaning their career plans will mostly go on hold, at least for a while.
In Gonzalez’s case, the Loews Hotel shuttered on March 23 and continued paying full salaries, up to 40 hours, until the end of that month. Starting in April, employees used their paid time off, then went on unemployment.
“I feel like [the Loews] did a really good job at reassuring us that everything was going to be OK,” she said. “They implemented a relief fund that gave us a small check to help with rent and utilities.”
The nation’s leisure and hospitality industry was more damaged than any other by the pandemic with 7.7 million jobs lost in
April. Though more than a million of those jobs have come back as restaurants and hotels reopen, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is still a long way to go.
“In the very near term, [young people] probably should have some concern because the industry has taken a pretty good hit,” said Paul Kern, branch chief at the Bureau of Economic Analysis in Washington, D.C.
But he believes the industry will recover once people start to feel comfortable dining at restaurants and staying in hotels. He counsels worried students to be patient.
“They might have to choose another field for a period of time,” he said. “The hospitality industry has done very well in the past and it’s hard to imagine it won’t do well moving forward.”
FIU’s Chaplin School is ranked in the top 30 schools of hospitality in the nation by bestcolleges.com. In its 2020 ranking, FlU’s Chaplin School is listed as the No. 1 online program for hospitality in the nation.
Lourdes Torres, assistant director of employer relations for the school’s career development program, is working on manager-intraining programs as a short-term solution.
“These programs are designed to train graduating students from a year to a year-and-a-half shadowing the manager,” said Torres. “Then they become entry-level managers.”
Students who finish this program, she says, have guaranteed positions. Several companies involved with the program have decided to push start dates later in the year.
Gaston Israilewich is a Chaplin student who has seen his opportunities fade because of COVID-19. He graduated this past May and, like Gonzalez, was accepted into the Disney College Program.
“I was going in as a front desk cast member,” he says. “My start date was on May 11. I found out it was canceled about a month before then.”
Then things got worse as the hotels nationwide closed.
“I was worried about the industry as a whole,” he said. “I was saddened that I couldn’t go to Disney right away and now I have to wait for things to settle to be able to put my degree to use. “
Now he’s feeling more upbeat. He plans on reapplying to the Disney College Program in August.
“The industry will bounce back,” he said. “Whether it’s now or six months from now, people will travel, eat at restaurants, stay at hotels and everything in between. I’m not worried about the industry. “
Remote learning has complicated matters. Stefania Rivero, who plans on graduating in August, says communicating with her professors by Zoom and telephone has been difficult.
“I learn best in person where we are able to discuss directly with our professor and stay engaged,” said Rivero. “It was very difficult to stay motivated being stuck at home with everything going on.”
When she’s not studying, Rivero runs a small dessert catering company called Stef’s Sweet Events LLC. Because of the pandemic, that business has slowed to a crawl.
“Clients started to cancel their celebrations and that led to the cancellation of their orders,” she says. “I was stressed because this was going to be my source of income as I was also starting an unpaid internship.”
Then Rivero implemented an alternative way to fulfill orders. She started to market a weekly “Cupcake Box” of mini cupcakes for $24. To make the offer more appealing, Rivero made delivery free and revealed a different flavor each week.
“Once clients saw I was still fulfilling orders in the pandemic, they started ordering sweets to enjoy in quarantine,” she says. “Although it was not the same amount of revenue from my custom order, it was a great way to keep the cash flow coming in.”
Rivero believes it will take some time before guests feel comfortable enough to dine at restaurants, stay at hotels and travel on planes.
The Chaplin School’s dean, Michael Cheng, is optimistic. Many of the skills his students learn — communication, teamwork and critical thinking, for instance — can be translated to other industries. And the technology that students have mastered during the pandemic will pay off when they get that hotel or restaurant job.
“These new skills that we are learning today as a result of this pandemic, working remotely and digitally, those are not going to go away,” he said. “The hospitality industry is going to evolve a little bit, and this is where the technology piece will come in to make it richer.”