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Tips for future interns

When I am reading my other classmates internship blogs - every one of them is very different in regards of places where internships have taken place, in variety of different fields and also very different tasks we have been doing. But on the other hand I can see a lot of similarities in challenges we all have faced, therefore, I have come up with some tips for future internships as follows.

Firstly, you will not believe how fast your internship search, application process will go and the internship itself will end. As they say - times flies when one is busy - is completely true in this case. Even though your second internship is a month longer than the first one it passed by a lot faster. It might be due to a lot of reasons, maybe because it is at summer time and it is a lot harder to work when the weather is beautiful; maybe because you already have a side job by now and you need to plan your time a lot more carefully to manage everything. No matter what is the reason - it will pass very quickly and you will not be able to believe that it is time to start writing the Bachelor Thesis already. 

With this being said, my suggestion is to start early. It might sound ironic since I am the one who always leaves everything for last minute but better learn from your mistakes later than never. Search for an internship place, find out if there is chemistry between you and the internship place and host, finalise your learning objectives and blog on time. Even though not always it will be easy but follow up with all the deadlines for application and reflect on your experience during the internship since you might forget some things when every day at the internship place will be like a new challenge. 

Another tip from my side is to focus on the right internship place for you. Mistake that is often made is when one stresses too much about not finding a place and agrees on the first place found. I would recommend to spend more time on finding the place which suits you and fulfils your expectations. One of the goals for this last internship is to find a place which will be beneficial for you in the future, either it is data collection for your Batchelor Thesis or future employment place so do not spend time doing something that you do not enjoy or see reason in doing. At the end of the day it is an unpaid internship and who would not want you to work for them for free? So do not worry and focus more on what is beneficial for you and for your future career. 

I would also like to point out another tip for the future interns which I can see a lot clearer now than I did prior to my internship. Look for the bigger picture! You will have a lot of small day to day jobs and if you focus too much of your time and energy on it you might miss the bigger picture. What is the purpose? What will be the outcome? What will you gain through this process? Keep these questions in mind before the internship and you will do just fine. We learn from the mistakes we make a lot better than from others so just keep doing what you do best and you will be just fine!

KZ

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Challenges I faced during the internship

In this post I would like to share with you some of the challenges I came across while applying and during the internship. 

Firstly, the application process itself overlaps with module 12 lectures and projects, and exam so time management starts already here. Module 12 is not an easy module and a lot of individual work is required and this was already my first obstacle since I need to improve my time management skills. Looking for the right internship place takes a lot of research and, therefore, time (at least it did for me) and I should had started doing it earlier to avoid sleepless nights when it came to the application deadlines. 

Once module 12 ends, the internships starts and that comes with new schedules. Souls is open every day from 9:00 to 21:00 so I had the flexibility to work with different schedules since I still had to run my own restaurant on the side. Yes, unfortunately, I did not have an option to leave my work aside and only work in my internship place, therefore, it took time for me to adjust to the new schedule when I had already an 8h work day at Souls and then another 10h work day at my own restaurant. From one side I always have had a full time job on the side of my studies but when it is internship time it is harder since the days become a lot longer and hand-in-hand your productivity decreases. Now I realise that this also reflected on my blog posts since they were not frequent and they should had been. I should had included extra time from the beginning already for blog posts because they do take time and it is necessary to keep them on track. I have never been good with deadlines and should have learned by now, but on the other hand I am one of those who work a lot better under pressure and sometimes might take too much advantage of it. 

Another challenge I came across was self motivation. My internship host was very flexible and easy going and sometimes I missed some more guidance and structure. In my own work environment since I work for myself, I am very used to having rhythm and knowing what I am doing and what else has to be done in the future. And when it comes to internships it is a very different system and structure. It was necessary for me to take, for example, these team building exercises to an outdoor environment to have that change in scene.

Thirdly, I had to trust a lot to my own capability and work. As already mentioned previously, when I work at my own restaurant, I know every bit of it so I am very confident at what I do. At Souls sometimes I felt like I was lacking confidence in my own knowledge and had to learn to trust myself more. It is easy to go by the book but once you have to step out of your comfort zone and create and invent, there are a lot of aspects to consider. Not only from the nutritional aspect but also design and likability wise. If the item is not selling, it does not matter how healthy or nutritious it is, a restaurant is not going to keep it on the menu. No matter what, there is always space for improvement and with new experiences you grow every day.

KZ

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My reflection on learning objectives

This is the second time my classmates and I are on an internship and the second time we had to write learning objectives for it. One might say - some people learn from their own mistakes but this was just half the case. Looking back at it now I realise that some of my learning objectives were too abstract and some too narrow and that is why I would like to elaborate on them.

 My first learning objective was about creating new and various dishes for Souls. It gave me an opportunity to work with the amazing head chef and experiment with different ingredients. I have done a lot of it in my own restaurant but it was different in a way that there was no meat or fish products involve and we used a lot of different ingredients and spices that I had not worked with previously. In couple of models at the university we had cooking classes and also I had knowledge about different produces from there. It is safe to say that I had an idea and I needed chefs help to carry out the vision. As I have mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, at the beginning, an obstacle for me was dressings which had nuts in them and once the guest was vegan and had a nut allergy simply because I had not thought of this combination prior to this. Regardless of this, experimenting with to me new ingredients and taste combinations, and different nutritional requirements was something new and very much exciting. 

In my second learning objective I stated that I will be able to compare different foods nutritional values. It gave me an opportunity to look at food and see it from a different point of view. Not just what is already the final product on your plate but where it comes from, how it is stored and the process throughout preparing a dish. Everything starting from different suppliers and how the deliveries happen to food labeling once it is in the fridge or on the cold storage shelf. The main thing I gain throughout this process was the knowledge gain while collaborating with eSmiley. All the rules and requirements one has to follow in Denmark is very strict, for example, how little can be the difference in temperatures certain produces are kept in. Also when it comes to different knifes and chopping boards used - different colours indicate different ingredients the tool is meant to be used for. 

I personally enjoyed my third learning objective the most - creation of nutrition guide. When food was prepared I got another chance to be hands on in the kitchen to weight ingredients and see preparation methods, in order to calculate the nutritional values. During the previous years of my education we had similar tasks in our cooking classes - to recall upon the eaten food, measurements and nutritional values, therefore, I was already familiar with how important is to get the measurements correct. 

My fourth learning objective - to create and carry out a health promotion event was the most challenging but the same time exciting. During the internship at Souls I had numerous events I was in charge of organising (in collaboration with my internship host of course). We faced some obstacles and some of them are still in progress and some were success. Everything at Souls is about healthy eating, therefore, let me tell you about the successful even first. Back at the start of July, I organised a social dinner event were I had invited a friend of mine who is an amazing guitar player. It suited the theme of Souls perfectly and gave an extra atmosphere to the soulful food which was served. Since my friend also has a large network we had full restaurant for the evening and, unfortunately did not even have enough space for everyone. Another example of event is not so successful - Souls has a very large outdoor seating area and we had planned to have a live Jazz concert right at the square next to us. Every day of the week was beautiful weather, except the day when concert was suppose to take place. It was poring down so hard that even underneath the tent no one could enjoy the music and our vegan BBQ grill, that we just simply had to close the event down early. Typical Danish summer. Another event I am working on and which is in progress is collaboration with youth sports school to do daily catering of Souls healthy food. It is a bigger project and lot of decisions have to be made by the internship host but it gives me an opportunity to learn an aspect of food industry that I do not know that much about - catering events. 

Once the learning objectives are set it gives one in a way guidline but also have to keep in mind that you should be flexible and able to adopt to changes throughout the process.

KZ

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Learning objectives

Before starting my internship at Souls I had to write down my learning objectives. Something that I want to learn and how am I planning to carry out. 

Before doing them I discussed and consulted with my internship host so we would be on the same page and I would know what he expects from me and also to clarify what he will let me do and how much “power” in changing or adjusting, or simply suggesting I will have. 

We came up with 4 learning objectives and a strategy how I will achieve them. 

Learning objective I:

Intern will continue the research and expand the menu by creating different menu items.

Key Strategies:

To analyse the current menu.

To evaluate the current menu.

To find ways to improve the current menu.

To work in collaboration with the head chef to create new menu items.

To present the changes and receive feedback from the headchef and internship host.

To evaluate the new menu items.

To present to the supervisor and implement the new items. 

Learning objective II:

Intern will be able to compare different nutritional values.

Key Strategies:

To examine Souls menu.

To follow up with ingredients used in the restaurant, i.e. suppliers, freshness.

To observe how dishes are prepared and what measurements used, e.r. kitchen skills, portion sizes, vegetable proportion.

To reflect to findings and present to the internship host.

Learning objective III:

Intern will calculate nutritional values for the menu and provide Souls with their dish nutritional guide.

Key Strategies:

To work in collaboration with the headchef and kitchen employees.

To measure dishes and ingredients serving size.

To decide on the nutritional guide’s structure.

To do necessary measurements and calculations.

To create the menu’s nutrition guide.

To ask for feedback from the headchef, internship host and other employees.

To reflect and evaluate the outcome - nutrition guide

Learning objective IV:

Intern will organise and carry event where promoting healthy eating.

Key Strategies:

To use skills and competencies gained in the education to create and carry out health promotion event.

To work in collaboration with the internship host.

So these are the 4 learning objectives and key strategies I came up prior to my internship and in my next post I will be reflecting on how realistic they were and my achievements and also disappointments.

KZ

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Food is colourful

Vegan Pizza (also gluten free) - in making

Vegan Pizza (also gluten free) and Vegan Burger (also gluten free) - final product

Acai Bowl (also gluten free)

Avo Smash (also gluten free)

All raw ingredients, made in house from scratch and dishes are colourful!

I do believe this is also another reason why Souls is as successful they are in such a short period of time.

Social media has so much power these days and it shows in all the followers we have. 5 months and more than 5000 followers on Instagram by itself - people love to see photos of fresh, delicious and healthy food and you just want to try it.

KZ

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I have chosen to reblog my classmates Jonas blog post since he is doing his internship in regards of school gardens here in Copenhagen. I have done one of my university projects on a very similar topic in Latvia, therefore, I find this very relevant and interesting. It gives me an opportunity to compare what has been done in Latvia (in lot of school, school gardens are a new thing and it is in developing process), and how they do it here in Denmark. It is always great to learn from one and another!

KZ

My internship organization

København’s Skolehaver is an organization consisting of a network of 6 different school gardens around the city of Copenhagen. It is economically supported by Københavns Kommunes Børne og Ungdomsforvaltning and it is a place where children can have a chance to get familiar with the earth and gardening every year, by cultivating a small piece of land with flowers and vegetables. This is both available to the children and youth in their spare time or as part of an educational, pedagogical and daycare activity. There are plenty of opportunities for adventure in the various locations, offering both playtime and a learning experience. Københavns Skolehaver is furthermore a nonprofit organization driven by deeply passionate facilitators who desire to share and teach the children about the deeper connection  that can be established to the earth and themselves enjoying what nature has to offer.

Here you can learn more about the organization: http://kbhskolehaver.dk/

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Servers and service

Not only food but also service and its level is incredibly important when it comes to service industry and being successful in it. So one’s employees are able to provide service that lives up to owners/managers expectations it is crucial to ensure a healthy working environment. As one may say - happy employees - happy guests. 

Since Souls is relatively newly opened restaurant, it has not been long since employees have been working together and this is were I came in. I have heard multiple times lines, such as, oh everyone can be a waiter/server and I would strongly like to disagree. Everyone can be a waiter/server but not everyone is good at it. As a business owner you can give a lot of tools to your employees, for example, coffee classes, but you can not teach one to be service minded if they do not have it in them. Judging from my own experience, guests can feel if the server is passionate about his work and it uplifts the atmosphere and the overall feel of the place. 

Back in the day when I lived in Canada, I had learned the North American serving style and, as I mentioned earlier Souls owners are Australians, and it is similar in style which they are implementing. It is the laid back, welcoming but the same time attentive approach. 

To create this laid back, welcoming and attentive service approach is not easy, therefore, it is necessary to find the right people who can work together when restaurant is busy and also when it is slower times. At Souls I implemented team building exercises, which mainly focused on trust building, communication skills, efficiency in stress situations and also having a little fun. Paintball was the fun part!

It is similar what we were thought in the first year of university when everyone had just arrived and got to know each other. International communication skills is what we focused on since employees at Souls come from very different cultures and backgrounds. There are people from counties as Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, Spain, Argentina, America and Australia working and everyone has their own personalities. 

I also did individual interviews with employees to find out what is their vision for Souls and how the working environment could be improved. As many servers experience while you are working and restaurant is busy it is hard to find time to sit down and have a meal. Therefore, we tried to implement a set employees lunch and dinner time. Who ever has the morning shift finishes around 15-16:00 and the evening shift comes at 15-16:00. In this way there is an overlap and time for everyone to have a meal (not just a quick snack on run). Restaurant closes at 21:00 already, therefore, there is time for employees to sit down and have a meal together as well. Not every shift is an easy one and it can put a lot of stress on one. This way they have an opportunity to sit down and talk and discuss what happened during their shifts, to so called “get it out of the system and leave it” and not to bring emotions back home. 

The same applies to drinking water during your shift. When one is busy working and have lot of things to do, you may forget to even drink something and few hours later realise that you have not had anything. I put up reminder signs in waiters sections and in restaurant’s kitchen to have a visual reminder to take those 5 seconds and have some water.

Team building is something that has to be an ongoing process, the same way how regular staff meetings are necessary to avoid creating some sort of misunderstandings due to no communication between different parties - not only between servers themselves but also kitchen employees and floor staff. 

KZ

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Run a Dinner in my opinion is an amazing idea! Every city has all sort of meet up groups with different interests but this one is just brilliant. In past 5-7 years Copenhagen has developed to be such a foodie city. It is not any more only France, Italy but also Copenhagen has put it’s name on the food map. However it started, Noma, Geranium... thousands and thousands of tourists are rushing to Copenhagen to experience the new Nordic style or some local Smorrebrod. In other words, food has become such a big part of Copenhagen. 

Every year a lot of new students move to Copenhagen for their bachelor or master studies. Some of us are lucky and already know some people here but for some of us, we have to find a way to meet people. This is were I see Run a Dinner fitting in perfectly. What is a better way to get to know each other than with some home cooked meal. It is not about showing off your cooking skills or the oldest wine collection but simply meeting new people in relaxed, cozy environment. As I said before - brilliant idea and exactly what Copenhagen was missing! Good luck!

KZ

My internship at RUN A DINNER

Run a dinner?! YES! it is a social eating experiment :) for a brief description:

Meet 12 new people during an exciting dinner through Copenhagen.

RUN A DINNER is 3 courses at 3 different locations:

1. YOU COOK You and your team partner are assigned to prepare a starter, main or dessert. This course is enjoyed either at your or your partner’s home, where two more teams join.

2. OTHERS COOK For the other two courses you are invited to your hosts’ homes. It means that you change locations (by bike, taxi or public transport) and meet new people at each course.

3. AFTER-PARTY At the end of the evening you meet all the participants of the event at Mini Bar in Gothersgade 35. Brag about your cooking skills and dance the night away with your new friends.

My main tasks are taking care of the social media accounts, create new events and find new “customers”. For myself, I am writing my bachelor about this project, so I am very interested in personal perceptions, satisfaction and influence of this project. I am joining all the dinners, “monitor” the food and alcohol intake and create questionnaires for measuring. 

I am working very free and I have total trust from my boss, which makes it possible for me to get a real life impression how start-ups and projects are growing and how much it  takes to get stakeholders and get things started!

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Allergies and Health Controls

Let me tell you a little bit more about one of the challenges every restaurant faces and how I was able to contribute my knowledge in monitoring it. 

In Copenhagen Health Control authorities are very strict, more than I have seen in other countries I have worked in, e.g., Latvia, Greece, Spain or Canada. When you first open up a business which carries food items you have to inform Health Control institution for them to do an examination if one’s kitchen follows all the guidelines and requirements. Since Souls opened before I started my internship they had already gone through their first check up. For the first year of a new business they do follow up unannounced examinations every 3 to 4 months. From my experience their main focus areas are: temperature food is kept in; cooling down process of different dishes, e.g., soup; organisation and labels in your storage areas; and overall cleanness. 

When it comes to temperatures and cleaning schedules we collaborate with an organisation called “eSmiley”. It is a Danish company, which helps restaurants with necessary data collection. It is an online program where I entered all the produce which is used at Souls and it helps you monitor “the alert” products. What I mean by alert products, e.g., dairy - you need to have a separate dairy fridge and temperature can not be higher than 5 degrees. On daily bases one of my duties was random temperature check and product quality check. Once the products have been delivered they need to be quality and damage checked and put away in to their dedicated place. We have 6 fridges plus a walk in fridge and you always have to make sure that everything is according to regulations and is registered in eSmiley program.

Firstly, it seems it should be a lot easier at Souls since there is no red meat, chicken or even fish used, which are one of the highest alert products but on the other hand we are dealing with a lot of different allergies and cross contamination can be even a bigger issue. 

Therefore, there is a new thing that has been added to the check list - allergies and your knowledge about them and about different alternatives. As a new rule restaurant must have a statement in their window stating that your employees are knowledgable about different dietary requirements. After I created their nutrition book including all ingredients in different dishes used, all dressings and sauce used, it was very beneficiary when it came to adjusting dishes to guests needs. At Souls the biggest issue we face is once a guest is vegan and the same time has a nut allergy. Almost all of the dressings we make are nut based since there is no dairy in them and it was the hardest obstacle to replace the dressings. By now we have finalised recipes for gluten free brunch and gluten free pancakes as well, which are one of the best sellers. We have also adjusted recipes so we are able to serve, for example, buckwheat pasta for those with gluten intolerance and dairy and also egg free pasta for dairy intolerance. Also when it comes to hot drinks - almond milk, rice milk or coconut milk is available. It is a matter of adjusting to your guests needs and finding that balance. 

KZ

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Visual impresions

I am a visual learner, therefore, wanted to share few photos also with you to show how Souls looks before service on daily bases, and to make it is easier to understand when I am sharing my experiences with you throughout this process.

KZ

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Day to day experiences

In this post I have chosen to share with you my dairy or day to day experiences. Every day, weekend or week has been very different so let me tell you a little bit more about it.

If you have ever been on the other side of restaurants - operations, service or cooking side - you will understand what I mean by this. A lot of times you find yourself running after time since the competition in Copenhagen is very high and you constantly have to find ways to improve your menu, your service level and your business in general. Due to my previous restaurant and nutritional knowledge, it is where I came in. My daily tasks very much varied but the objectives stayed the same. 

One of my goals was to inform and improve employees knowledge of different dietary requirements, nutrition, allergies and food restrictions their guests have. Therefore, in collaboration with the chef we worked on detailed nutrition book which consists of all the recipes and ingredients used. Also we created a “cheat sheet” for employees, so it is understandable without advanced knowledge on different diets and is also easily useable. 

Another of my tasks was to examen different suppliers and make cost control analysis. A major part of cost control is also waist control, which is something we had to work together with chefs. This is also where my knowledge from previous employment places came in since I had already experience on doing such calculations. Since Souls is a plant based restaurant - following seasons when it comes to ingredients used is very important, therefore, I had set up meetings with our greens/vegetable delivery company to follow up on new produce and upcoming seasonal products. 

One of my favourite duties is healthy eating promotion through social media (SM). In relatively short period of time, Souls has been able to gather a very large amount of followers on Facebook and even more on Instagram. SM these days have incredible influence and I could easily see it with, for example, Souls Instagram account. Since I am in charge of social media posts, I get to feel this “SM power”. It is crucial to not let your SM rest but keep going with daily posts from different events we were having, for example, different catering venues. 

As I said at the beginning of my post - every day in service industry is full of surprises and you can only guess where it will take you; shortly I will do an update on my objectives and things I have learned and still learning throughout this process. 

KZ

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Introduction to Souls

I am a 3rd year student at Metropol University in Copenhagen and as part of my education I am doing a 3 month internship at restaurant called Souls. 

Souls is newly open healthy eating place in one of Copenhagen’s suburbs - Østerbro. Owners, Jason and Matthew, come from Queensland, Australia but been living in Copenhagen for the past decade. They always felt like Copenhagen was missing seriously healthy, home made food and cozy ambiance, therefore, 7 months ago they decided to take the risk and open their own eatery. 

Their philosophy behind is that they want to put the soul back into food by producing locally sourced food of the highest quality for people that are conscious of not only what they eat but also where it comes from and how it got to their plate.

Souls offers plant based food for everyone, if it is breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner time and is open 7 days a week. All the original recipes and training came from a famous Danish vegan chef, Neel Engholm. Unfortunately, I only partially got a chance to work with her since she left on maternity leave but she still is no stranger to Souls multiple times a week.

I, as a health and nutrition student, can learn a lot at Souls and give my knowledge to them. Not only when it comes to different ingredients and nutritional knowledge but from me as restaurant owner myself. It goes hand in hand with different business ideas, marketing strategies and healthy eating promotion since on the side I have operated my own restaurant here in Copenhagen for the past 9 months.

In my next posts I will share my experiences, successes, struggles and reflections, and much more from my internship process. 

KZ