MSU students put their best fork forward …. now which spoon should I use?

MSU students learned that good manners are still in style and can help them get a job at an inaugural dinner hosted by MSU Career Services.

Judging from the turnout at the inaugural MSU etiquette event, "Putting Your Best Fork Forward," college students do care about manners and decorum.

by Carol Brenner, MSU News Service

One hundred and eighty seven students and 36 table captains attended a three-course dinner complete with exotic wines paired with each course as part of Career Week. Carina Beck, director of MSU Career Services, and her team put on the dinner, hoping that the experience would help prepare students for future social and business events.

"I’m going to dinner with Boeing representatives on Thursday, and I want to prep," said Blake Rasmussen, president of ASMSU and a senior engineering student from Antelope, Mont. Rasmussen did an internship with Boeing this past summer.

"It’s also an opportunity for employers to get out and do some recruiting themselves," he said. Rasmussen sat at a table with the recruiter from Right Now Technologies. "This was a great event, and I hope they continue it in the future."

From the spicy, red gazpacho soup to the chewy, dark chocolate-macadamia nut torte, taste buds were startled and thrilled. The soft strains of soothing piano music eased nerves and digestion as students, dressed in business attire for the occasion, mentally prepared for tough interview questions from their table captain. Such questions as, "What is your greatest weakness?" or "What is the greatest obstacle you’ve had to overcome during your education?" kept students slightly taut and on top of their game.

The mock interviews conducted by table captains, who were alums, local Rotary Club members or business people, offered students an opportunity to shine and practice their interviewing skills.

Emcee Gordon "Corky" Brittan, who is a professor of philosophy at MSU as well as director of MSU’s Wheeler Center, helped put everyone at ease with his own stories of dining faux pas. After hearing how he floated his tie in his soup at a formal dinner in Athens, Greece in the home of a powerful government official, the students chuckled and eased into their first course, soup. Brittan said his upbringing gave him the opportunity to develop and master the unspoken social code taught in the ’50s.

"While the content of the code has changed, knowing it and mastering it can help everyone feel at ease in all situations," Brittan said, adding that the purpose of his instruction was to instill self-confidence and help students feel natural in all settings.

Appropriate table manners, demonstrated by the table captain, along with instruction from a handout distributed to all, helped students and some socially challenged adults figure out where to put the soup spoon once they had finished their soup and the right way to hold a wine glass.

Ed Brandt, proprietor of Cardinal Distributing, one of the event sponsors, instructed the group on the finer elements of wine, including swirling, serving temperature and why in
some countries people drink a lot more wine than water. Students sampled wine from Tuscany, California and South Africa.

Students paid $15 to attend the dinner, while adults and others paid $25.

After completing the dessert course and coffee, students courteously excused themselves to do homework and prepare for the next day’s classes. They shook hands with their table captain, received positive feedback on their interviewing skills and perhaps pondered their next interview.

This article is available on the Web at:
http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=2793