Nepalese students deepen their skills as BarLaurea's supervisor trainees

Laurea's Leppävaara campus is home to the teaching restaurant BarLaurea, which includes a lunch restaurant, an à la carte restaurant, a café, meeting and catering services and a BarLab beverage experience environment. BarLaurea serves as an important learning environment for students of restaurant management - especially in the early stages of their studies.

In addition to the permanent Laurea staff, BarLaurea is run by supervisor trainees, who are second or third year hospitality management students. Each of them has their own area of expertise: one is responsible for catering, i.e. meeting services on campus, one for the lunch restaurant on the hall side and one for the kitchen.

This spring, the Nepali trio of Sandesh Adhikari, Samir Nagarkoti and Laxmi Koju have been put into action as BarLaurea's supervisor trainees. They are students from Laurea's Hospitality Management and Service Design course in English. They have started their studies at Laurea in summer 2024.

"An excellent place to start a career in Finland"

– BarLaurea is an excellent place for us to start our career in Finland. It's wonderful to see so many happy, smiling customers here, the student trio describe their first feelings after a few weeks at BarLaurea.

– This is a training period, so we are still learning. But learning by doing is a really good way to learn, Samir Nagarkoti adds.

The Nepalese students have had the opportunity to do a three-week internship in the restaurants of Laurea's key partner, Ravintola Factory, in their very first autumn of studies. Now, however, as supervisor trainees, they will be able to take on more responsibility:

– Now we're not just working in the kitchen either, we're meeting customers. We are studying service business, so customer service skills are important, Sandesh Adhikari says.

Finnish language skills develop in everyday life

Taneli Kesäläinen, who works as a restaurant manager at BarLaurea, works closely with the trainees on a daily basis. The first few weeks have also been a learning experience for the more experienced BarLaureans.

The big new thing is of course the language, as for the first time communication is being handled in English. But even though there is a lot of communication in English in everyday life, the internship is also excellent for the Nepalese students' Finnish language development:

– I think our supervisor trainees will learn Finnish really well this semester, as they hear it all the time in their everyday life, says Kesäläinen.

On the other hand, the customers of the Leppävaara restaurant will also be able to enjoy a taste of Nepal during the spring:

– Of course, since we are all Nepalese, we would like to give our customers something of the Nepalese culture, says Laxmi Koju.

Trainees learn how to interact

An internship in an environment like BarLaurea is an important learning experience for students who may not yet have previous experience of working in a front-of-house role in a restaurant. At BarLaurea, students are given a completely different level of responsibility from many other internships and experience of working in a real restaurant.

Kesäläinen himself has had a long career in restaurants before entering the education sector. So what are some of the most important things students learn as a pre-apprentice?

– As a front-of-house person, you need to know how to communicate, listen and direct people. In a work community, we have different people working for us and we react in different ways to situations, but as a chaperone you need to know how to deal with changing situations with everyone, summarises Kesäläinen.

Learn more about Hospitality management and service design degree programme