Back to Teaching Notes

Teaching Notes

Teaching FAB 333: Culture and Cuisine

June 23, 20262 min readFiled under Teaching Notes
Teaching NotesTeachingHospitality EducationFAB 333teachingculture and cuisinehospitality educationstudent engagement
One of the professors at UNLV in the Food and Beverage department left the department, which meant that they had to fill four courses for the Spring semester. I already work something like 70 hours per week, and I do research on the weekend when I am not working, but somehow I let my dad convince me that teaching a class in the spring semester would be a good idea. But a good idea it was, because I absolutely loved it. Mondays are already stressful because they are the start of the week, and somehow the weeks always start out a little crazy. But I could not wait to go to class every week. When the weeks got stressful, it was the one thing I looked forward to. I tried my hardest to strike the balance between fun and engaging, yet educational and informative. I spent a lot of time talking about different cultures, food, and travel, but I think what the students loved most were the hands-on pieces of the class. We did a wine tasting lesson, a lesson on dining etiquette, a tea tasting, a five tastes lab, and ate so many different types of food.
FAB 333 moments
  • Wine tasting
  • Dining etiquette
  • Tea tasting
  • Five tastes lab
  • Food, culture, travel, and conversation
Based on some of the things that the students told me at the end of the semester, I think it is fair to say that I did a half-decent job. My favorite of the quotes:

Class almost felt like stand up comedy at times.