Academic Achievement Mind Map Reflection

An Academic Achievement of mine that I am very proud of would be when I was able to make a
successful food stand in my Business Studies class. This took place in my old school in
Auckland, which is the largest city in New Zealand. In my old school there was a day that took
place once a year which was called market day, and what happens on market day would be
during lunch in the gym, all the business studies would have prepared small markets to sell
things to people. It was the major project in our business studies class. Our group consisted of
only three people, so we all had to work hard to make our ideas work. For our market we would
need to think up what we were going to sell, create a logo, a menu, posters (to put up around
the school before market day), we had to record our assets (how much we were going to
spend), and try to make a high net profit. We thought of the idea of creating a taco stand, while
others thought up ideas of selling sushi, competition, gambling, etc. We thought that selling food
was the best way to go since market day was going to take place during lunchtime, and even if
it wasn’t there are always people who are hungry. So, we got all our ingredients, created our
various marketing posters, and created what we wanted to sell. When it came to market day our
stand was the one with the biggest line, so it was a huge success, and it was an extremely
stressful time trying to get everyone's orders, giving back change, and preparing their food. One
thing that we didn’t account for however was the amount of beef that we put in each taco, which
mistakably was a lot, and this completely drained all of it. We still had countless tortillas, veggies
and sauces, but nothing of mince. So, we had to start selling vegetarian tacos, which only one
person was willing to buy. Once we had finished, we realized how much success our stand had
had for the majority of the period, but when it came to profit, we had only gained two dollars.
Even if it was financially a disappointment, we still learned a variety of lessons, skills, and
experience on a lot of subjects. Our grade was also the highest one in all the classes, with only
one point of the maximum score because of our net profit.
This achievement was extremely meaningful to me because it took a lot of weeks of
preparation, and it went for the most part extremely well, and it was very enjoyable as I did it
with my friends. It was a big accomplishment to set up everything and to make a functioning
business that worked and earned us profit. It was extremely fun to put my ideas into something
that I had no idea would work and in the most part sold out extremely well. It was also very cool
that we got the highest grade on the biggest assignment in the class.
Some of the skills that I gained from working throughout this assignment and after would be
being able to work a cash register, communication skills with the customer and my co-workers,
working under a lot of pressure, creating food under a lot of pressure, developing and designing
a logo, poster and menu through photoshop, creating a budget to keep track of what we buy,
and to experience what it's like to make a fully functioning food stand/business.
What I learned about myself throughout preparing for market day and after are that my
strengths really show in my designing and art, creating the logos, menus, and posters for our
assignment is where I was really shining throughout this project. This is because I love to come
up with new ideas and make them a reality in this project. Another thing that I found out about
myself would be that I really like to create things and work together with people when it comes
to projects. It really helps when everyone contributes ideas together to make a really good
product. Some of the challenges/barriers that our team faced throughout the project would have
been the balancing of our budget, as in the end we realized that we had bought way too many
tortillas and sauce. This overbuying and serving a bit too much to the customers is what caused
our net profit to fall all the way down to 6 dollars.
Some of the future connections that I can make from this academic achievement of mine, would
be that through the design of the menus, logos, and posters, I have learned that I have a
passion for art and drawing and I could take that into consideration when I am looking for what I
want to do in the future. Some of the options that I have for my future would be becoming a
concept artist, 3D modeler, 3D artist, and 3D animation. These all link back to the designing I
did in the business studies project, and I can use those skills I learned in the future. Another
future connection that I can make would be, if I want to open a business (a shop, restaurant,
cafe) in the future, I have already learned some basic skills that I can put into that.