World On A Plate

Nilai UC Students gain invaluable experience when organising a cultural food fair as part of their course work.

Nothing is as pleasing to the senses when confronted by a tantalizing array of exotic foods. And that was what greeted the Nilai International University College (Nilai UC) populace recently when final year students from its Diploma in Hotel Management programme conducted their class project. The students were being tested on their event management skills which is a module in the final year.

Their response was to organise a cultural food fair with delicacies from far-flung corners of the planet reflecting the diverse student population at Nilai UC. The event was aptly called ‘World On A Plate’. “Of course, we couldn’t feature all the countries as Nilai UC has students from 50 countries and that would have been too big a challenge for a bunch of novices,” smiles Vincent Koh, who was project leader. Though only Koh and his course mates were being academically assessed for the event, they still managed to rope in a good number of students from other faculties (below) to help make their event a success.

Put this into para -
1) Chinese Desserts (set up by the Chinese Language Society)
2) Western Pastry (set up by Culinary Arts students)
3) Portuguese Food (set up Diploma in Hotel Management students)
4) Kajang Satay (set up Diploma in Hotel Management students)
5) African Food (set up by Culinary Arts students)
6) Indonesian Food (set up by the Indonesian Society)
7) Taiwan barbecue (set up by student volunteers)
8) Chicken Chop (set up by student volunteers)
9) Beverages (set up by the Swimming Club)

The lecturer overseeing this project, Edward Felix Joseph, was very pleased with the idea. “The whole idea of the project was for the students to initiate, plan and execute an event as part of the course assessment. ‘World On A Plate’ was a particularly good idea as it involved other parties such as students from various clubs and associations as well as the Department of Student Affairs,” beamed a clearly proud Joseph.

In total, this project made up 30% of the students’ final marks. The students will be assessed at various stages – proposal, planning, execution and closure. “Such projects teach students to be independent and that they are responsible to the client, the team members and all other participants for the success of the event,” said Joseph. While ‘World On A Plate’ was wrapped up successfully, Joseph is already busy supervising two other groups of students’ projects – ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’ and ‘Hollywood Glamour’.