Week 1 at the University of Oklahoma !

Day 1:

So I will begin by introducing myself, my name is Niki MacLeod and I am from a very small town called Glace Bay which is located on Cape Breton Island, NS, Canada. I just graduated in May from St Francis Xavier University with a Bachlor of Science in Human Nutrition. Come September I will be starting my one year long Dietetic Internship allowing me to continue my journey of becoming a Dietitian. At this moment I am a NACUFS Intern at the University of Oklahoma where I live in a city called Norman.

As pastimes I enjoy spending time with friends and family in any way possible; especially my baby niece who is only 3 months old. I love exercising and being active whether it’s running, walking, going to the gym, workout classes or hiking. I have a passion for food and trying new things, I will always try something once! Most of all I spend my days surrounding myself with music, I play piano and have for 16 years so music has always been a huge part of me. I love to play music but I also love to listen to it constantly throughout my day; country music is my favorite so Oklahoma is the place for me (Blake Shelton is from Oklahoma)!

Being the only intern here from Canada always makes for a great conversation starter. I explain to people that Cape Breton Island is as east of Canada as you can go and that I’ve lived near the ocean my whole life. People always tell me they can hear my Canadian accent and ask me to say words like “about” and “probably” because they state that I say them ‘funny’. Everyone here is so friendly and welcoming and I absolutely love their southern accents, I would love to pick it up over the next 2 months!

Day 2:

Today I experienced my very first encounter with the dreaded Oklahoma thunder and lightning. Hail smashing off my bedroom window woke me up at 5am continuing with blasts of lightning and intense thunder. To put the thunder into perspective for everyone picture this, the thunder crashed so loudly that car alarms in our parking lot began to go off. I usually love thunder and lightning storms but this type of storm was nothing to be in awe about, just pure terror. It definitely brought out my scardy-cat side.

To begin the day Kayla and I went to a Food Safety course and after a 45 minute lecture followed by a short quiz we are now certified Food Handler’s! The second half of our day was spent in the office where we had the privilege of meeting Stephanie, the individual responsible for creating and re-vamping the vegetarian/vegan menu offered at Couch Restaurant. We sat in on her meeting with Dot and were encouraged to give our opinions and input on the menu. Menu planning such as this type interests me because I am not a vegetarian or a vegan so I do not know much about the meals that they eat and why. So by learning about the menu I learn new ways of eating. We will be working with Stephanie on this menu, helping her in choosing recipes and possibly taste testing a few along the way.

We finished our day off with a chat with Dot, going over our objectives as interns and our schedule for the next 2 months. We received keys to our office space (our very own office!) and were able to get acquainted with our new desks and computers. We were notified that we would be in Couch (mealhall style dining on campus) Thursday, Friday and Monday so I am anxious to know what this experience will bring!   

Day 3:

My day began again with another thunder and lightning storm at 5am, waking me up and keeping me awake. Oklahoma weather is so unpredictable because one minute it’s a hurricane outside and the next it is sunny and 80 degrees! Overall I much rather it storm at night while I am inside and dry than later on through the day when I need to be out and walking to work.

Today was a day to ourselves where nothing was planned and we could just get ourselves organized. Kayla and I spent the day in our office where we got our priorities organized and began researching ideas for future projects. One of our projects is to put together a 30 minute in-service presentation on a topic of our choice, so we shuffled some ideas around in the morning of possible topics. Today was a relaxing day but tomorrow we are at Couch with Sam Ford where we will be learning about their food service operation and what it takes to run such a large food facility.

Day 4:

Today Kayla and I were assigned to Couch where we met with Claire Rodriguez. Claire takes care of staffing and scheduling for Couch employees, creating the weekly or monthly schedule. She is also responsible for the hire and firing of Couch employees so she keeps a close eye on each employee to ensure the operation is running smoothly. During the year Claire is responsible for staffing over 200 employees, which seems impossible to me but can apparently be done! Claire explained to us how Couch is broken into 3 sections which are The View, Home and Sizzle; each having multiple different food service operations within. I am still in awe of how large this university is, Couch alone has 14 unique all you can eat restaurant themes. So staffing and scheduling for a large university can sometimes be a pain especially when dealing with every changing university students (I did work while in university and I was one of those pain in the butt students). Claire took us through the computer programs she uses, the hiring and firing process, the different positions offered, rules and regulations, and the different programs offered through Housing and Food.

One of their programs is the Room and Board Program run by Danna. The way this program works is that students are required to work at least 16 hours per week in food service and in return they not only get paid $9.45/hr they also receive their room and board free. On average they usually have over 100 students in this program. Another program they offer is the ABLE Program for people with special needs, which is a program that I think is fantastic! This program offers those with special needs a meaningful job position, building security, growth and friendships.  

At lunch time Kayla and I went out front and helped serve lunch. They have a great system where two people serve the food and one person is the runner and gets them whatever they need. Being a server can definitely be overwhelming at times especially when they have a 20-30 person line backed-up waiting for food. One thing I noticed was that they only gave one specific serving portion and if someone asked for extra they told them they’d have to come back. Apparently this is to cut down on food waste seeing as so people’s eyes can sometimes be bigger than their bellies. The servers said the food that ends up getting thrown out is unbelievable and actions had to be taken to cut down on food waste.

Everyone wants to do their part in keeping our world a green place but OU goes above and beyond this concept. The university grounds are full of greenery and are kept immaculately clean and tidy. They use equipment that has a sole purpose of being environmentally friendly such as the bus used on campus, and the ORCA composter in the kitchen. During the general meeting we sat in on today managers were discussing the new products that will be implemented around campus that will disperse all recycled napkins and plates. Another cool thing is that there is no smoking on campus grounds which I think is GREAT! No one likes to be walking to class and instead of breathing in fresh air they get a big whiff of cigarette smoke. OU takes pride in having a beautiful campus and it does not go unnoticed !

Day 5:

It’s a beauty of a day today in Norman, Oklahoma and to top it all off its FRIDAY! I have a full weekend planned with tanning, swimming and shopping (the best kind of weekend). It doesn’t even feel like I have been here for a week, I suppose it’s because I just love it here so much! Being the Canadian gal that I am and coming from colder temperatures the heat has yet to be an issue for me. I’ve actually been enjoying the hot sunny weather, probably because the two weeks before I left to come to Oklahoma my town rained the whole time. My first week was nothing but fabulous and I learned a lot more than anticipated.

Today Kayla and I were with Frances Ryan, Frances is in charge of inventory at Couch. She explained to us that inventory is normally only taken at the end of each month but lately they have been trying something new which meant taking inventory at the end of each week. Since Friday is inventory day, Kayla and I got to help Frannie with the inventory process. To do dry storage alone it took an hour and a half and Frannie told us that it normally takes longer when it is only one person doing it. We got to learn so much today because Frannie allowed us to get involved and really see exactly how the whole process works. Although inventory is a full day’s work, doing it weekly is supposed to be helpful in the long run.

There are so many restaurants here in Oklahoma that I have never seen or eaten at before so my mission for the next 2 months is to try as many as possible. I have so far tried Freshens, Pandera which was delicious, Olive Garden which was absolutely to die for, and today we ate at Canes. My next target restaurant is Sonic because I hear the food is delicious.

**Im terrible at remembering to take pictures sooooo on that note, Ill have pictures for next weeks blog ! :)