Thanks for coming and thanks for inviting me to the TEDx Salon event. So my name is Calvin and I recently graduated from University of Surrey about six months ago and I studied hospitality and tourism management which I chose because I love hospitality, I love food, I love F&B, tourism stuff and before I came to Surrey I actually live in Australia and then I'm So I'm sorry it's a really good hospitality course which is the reason I decided to come. So these are stuff that we learn at the course. It's not just about like theory, it's practical stuff as well.
For example, we host our own event at Lakeside Restaurant as one of our modules in our final year. It's like a dinner event, you learn about like stuff like marketing, sales, how to promote the events, how you can improve the events and make the experience better for all the guests, which I really love because Instead of just studying theories and papers and books, we actually get to do stuff that we learn a lot about, like how to do things. As one of our modules, we also went to, can you guess which country that is? Yeah.
So it was our Tourism Theory in Practice module, which we went to Morocco for eight days for research. So that picture you see on the right is a bakery. So we actually visited some locals to see how tourism and the tourism development affects their daily lives.
For example, these businesses were hugely affected by tourists because they are a huge part of their income. And we went to some local markets, companies, and we visited the markets and see how tourist behavior affects their daily lives. Outside my degree, I was actually part of the Student Union Exec team in my second year, which we were elected to be the officers in my first year, which certainly is actually happening soon. So I would definitely encourage people to get involved, not just as candidates, but also get involved for campaigning, voting, getting involved in different ways.
I was elected to be the international officer in my second year, but unfortunately that position no longer exists because it changed structure about last year, I think. but I think it was a great experience to get involved in the student union because there's so much more you could do and so much more the university could offer you outside your degree like I can involve all the societies, events, activities, stuff like that and throughout the experience of being on the exact team in my second year we learned about how to be a leader all the skills you learn, organisation skills, time management, we have like weekly meetings every week to talk about how we can make the university experience better for everyone, how we can enhance the student experience, how we could benefit you guys, what we could do to make your life here better. I was involved in both different societies and clubs which I also encourage you to do because you are here for like three or four years, once you're gone then this experience is gone, I mean you won't be able to join as this many societies and clubs while you're outside working. There's so many opportunities for you guys to join different activities and events while you're at Surrey So I would definitely recommend that I was a member of a few societies like Photoshock, Slack TV, Surf, Judo I kind of regret doing that one because I get beat up every week So I only joined for a few months and I quit, sorry And these are the other societies that I was a committee of So they're like gospel choir for wine stack magazine do more fun during and hostcon as well so um if um how many of you are part of a society like a member and how many of you are committees so you probably knew what know what i'm talking about like being a committee um definitely benefits a lot like you learn so much more than just being a member like you learn about how to manage the whole team how to organize events promotion how to bring students together um and um These are stuff that you learn, they will definitely, doesn't have just benefits your student life but also what you do like career options like Enhance your CV.
You can learn so much more from just from a degree. And these are some stuff that I did, some funny pics that I did with society. Singing on stage, making pasta at the hotel, surfing in Italy and selling tickets for a foot-on-white society event.
in my placement year um how many of you are going to do placement you have done placement year which hands up and how many of you did not regret it Yeah, basically what I'm trying to say is getting a year of experience of working before you graduate is, I would definitely recommend it because, yes, your degree could help you find knowledge and stuff in the industry that you're interested in, but working in the industry for another year could definitely enhance your employability. You can learn so much more just from books and papers and exams. For example, I work at the Langham Place Hotel in Hong Kong in six months.
I work in the front office, so I learn about greeting guests, giving directions, how to be helpful with them if they have any problems, because you need to help solve them. I work at the media design company for three months, and we learn about the event agency called Uniplan for another three months. And I learn so much about marketing, advance management, and saves as well. So that's something that you can learn just sitting at the lecture theatre. written from books.
So I definitely recommend doing placement year. And I finally graduated in July last year. And that's actually a picture I took right after our last exam. So we got like champagne ready, and here I am, graduated.
So yeah, that's been it. And that's probably the part that you're most interested in. So ShushiLab, it's a business that I started after I graduated. I graduated in July and this opens in October, but it takes a lot longer than that to plan the opening of the business. So basically I was in my final year, so it was 2015. So in about November, I was kind of looking for jobs online, like marketing, sales, which is kind of what I want to do, but there wasn't one that I particularly wanted to do, like I was really interested in.
So I thought about why I wanted to do it. Why not start my own business? Would it be possible for me to start my own business right now? Because ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to start my own business. I wasn't sure what or when, like it could be food, it could be like retail, shop maybe.
Then it struck me like in my final year, like why not sushi? Because I love sushi, it's my favourite food, I love Japanese food. I've been to Japan like five times already, I love the culture.
So when I thought about what I want to do, I instantly thought about sushi. So yeah, I started planning in about November in 2015. I started looking for a premises in Guildford. Unfortunately, it took me quite a while to find one because Guildford is quite a small town and there was literally like zero space for restaurants available in Guildford. There's space for retail shop but not for restaurants so it took me until June, like six months later, that I actually found one available for rent and I made an offer and I beat the other competitors who also made an offer for the place and the landlord picked me so I got the place and we signed the lease in September So it's three months later. But there's so many documents, like solicitors, lawyers, have so many documents to sign.
So it took a long time to actually get a lease signed. Although my offer was accepted in June. But I only got the keys in September. And we finally opened on the 29th of October.
So that's a month after we signed the lease. So that's a bit of some photos of the restaurants. You can see the theme and the style of the restaurants, like really fun, playful, and colorful. That's why we...
we want to make the experience and the environment really colorful for people, for customers. Some more pics, we just started doing events, catering as well. So that definitely brings another side of the business to show people what else we could do, not just like eat in, take away, but also events.
This is a picture of the inside of the restaurant. and like I said, it takes a lot of effort and time to get this restaurant up and running and ready. And so much time, so sleepless nights, all the paperwork, marketing, promotion, designing stuff.
It was a lot of work, but I think it was totally worth it. I mean, we opened, so it was a Saturday that we opened on, and the night before I did not sleep at all. I think I took maybe 20 minutes nap maybe, and I was at the restaurants until 5 in the morning because the place was so crowded. This was a mess the night before we opened.
I finished painting the wall and like throwing the menu on the wall. I went back to my house at 5 in the morning, took a shower and went back. We opened at 11 when the place looked amazing. This is what it looks like at half 11 when we opened.
I will show you a picture of what it looks like 12 hours before we opened. It's a lot of effort and time that I put in. And I'm just really happy that it works out. And I hope that my presentation and speech you will find inspiring and inspire me for any questions. Thanks.
Thank you.