Ready for Class!
Last night was our first night of class at Regency Beauty Institute. I was so super excited! I arrived at 5:00 on the dot (so glad my hubby & I could work our schedule out that way) to begin class at 5:15. I met three other girls who were starting with me – One of them is 18, no kids & works at a fast food chain during the day – Another girl is 21, has an 11-week old baby and stays home with the baby while her family works during the day. The third girl is early 20’s, has a 5 month old, transfered from another beauty school because the class sizes were too large, and works as an assistant to a tattoo school owner (i think she & I will get along great since I have 11 tattoos!). I’m the oldest in the class, followed only by the instructor.
My first contact of the night was with Ms. Vera who is the assistant campus manager and now acting campus manager as the previous CM was no longer with the company. Ms. Vera is a very joyful woman who seems to take great pride in her job. I met with her and paid my very first tuition payment – WHEW – so glad that part is over! lol.
When it was time for class to begin, we were lead to one of the classrooms where we were introduced to Trena, who will be out Workshop instructor for the next 4 months. Trena was a very interesting character. She told us that she would begin class at 5:30, so we had a few minutes to relax and chit chat before we began. Poor Ms. Trena was a little sidetracked as the person who had previously used the classroom still had materials all over the place and she couldn’t find half of the papers that she needed to get started – but it was ok, we joked with her and overall she seems to be a very happy person.
Everyone seemed fairly happy to be there – some were a bit nervous and one seemed like it didn’t really matter to her – BUT, I know it mattered to ME and I refuse to let other people get in my way. One thing I love is that Regency Beauty Institute has a ZERO TOLERANCE for negativity on campus (and probably off campus too…lol).
Ok, back to the class – of course, it was just like an orientation – full of Rules and Regulations – not much more. They basically read to us straight out of the student handbook – We learned about what is expected of us attendance wise & that we get two late passes a month – which we were told we should A) use wisely and B) don’t let go to waste by not using them. This bugged me because I don’t plan on being late – I’m paying good money to be educated, I don’t want my hours getting messed up because I was late, purposefully or not, but I guess I understood what she was saying, I just don’t think it should be promoted or encouraged. We learned about Regency’s Mission and Culture too.
We were also informed that our instructors are there to “teach you the techniques and requirements that you need to meet in order to pass the State Board exams”. We were told that we weren’t there to learn “all that fancy stuff” and that we would be taught everything we needed to know in order to pass our exams. This bugs me too, because, though I know she didn’t mean to, she came off as I’m-going-to-teach-you-the-bare-minimum-in-order-to-get-your-license. Now, I’m sure we’re going to learn tons of really great stuff. I’m sure it was just a rough night for her because it was a long day for her since she had been there since noon and she was used to being there at 5:15…but, I think maybe she just worded it wrong. She says she teaches her classes the way she wished classes were taught when she was in beauty school.
There were also two other students there who started a few months ago. Since Trena was the only instructor there – they had to sit in with our new student orientation. At first they were reading the text book, as Mr. Trena told us there was some bad news coming – she didn’t think we were going to be able to get our nail kits or our textbooks that night because they were out of them – BUT, Ms. Vera was there to save the day because she had called Regency Headquarters on Saturday and they had overnighted our materials! YAY – we were getting everything after all!
We talked about dress code – which I previously covered – but it was also added that we were allowed to wear grey pants. WHOO HOO. oh, and no hats, lol – that part I missed previously somehow, since I showed up in my super cute hat! but they told me it was fine as long as I put it in my locker during class hours.
The two “older” students, who are younger than me but older to the school, decided that they wanted to go do a pedicure on each other while we were in orientation – so they were given permission to do so.
We continued on and talked about the STAR Program. This is when I got excited again. One of the perks of becoming a Master Student Designer is that you get to go on a paid-by-the-company trip to Chicago for a Hair Show – however, what stinks is that you have to qualify as a Master Designer by the end of January, and I won’t be able to qualify since I won’t be on the floor by then – SUPER UBER SAD!. BUT, there are more perks to becoming a Master Student Designer like getting FREE STUFF! Makeup kits, t-shirts, shears, all kinds of goodies are available… I’ll go into more depth about the Star Program in another post as I work towards it, but you should know, that it DOES require that you be out of the workshops and actually on the floor doing salon work (aka guest services) as part of what they track. They also track your attendance and your grades, your Guest Rewards participants, your Guest Feedback…etc.
We watched a dvd on Financial Aide – whooo hooo. lol. nothing I didn’t know already, but it was required.
We finished paperwork that other people hadn’t done yet – haha, I was the ONLY ONE who had EVERYTHING completed – eager much?
We were then shown how to clock in / out at 8:15, which I didn’t understand why we had to wait until exactly 8:15 but whatever – Then – dun dun dun!!! We got to break open our kits. YAY – we had to go through the checklist and hold up each and every single item. And trust me, there are a LOT of items – I’ll review the kit soon too…probably tonight – but I want to wait until I have EVERYTHING.
BUT, before we could check our nail kits – we were told it was time to go. We taped our nail kit checklist to the tops of the unopened boxes with our names on them, then took them and locked them in the dispensary. Trena was ready to GO! we were all trying to hurry and get our stuff together and get our kits out to our cars so we could come back in and clock out at exactly 9:15 per her instructions. I really hope its not going to be like that every night. I mean, I work a full-time job during the day so I want to go home just as bad as the next person, but I’m not a rush rush kind of gal. She kept telling us that she had been there working since noon and I kinda wanted to pipe up and tell her that I had been working since 7 am and hadn’t had anything to eat yet, so she wasn’t the only one ready to go.
OH YEAH – no food or drinks in the classroom – only in the break room – which we get to use for 15 minutes once a night – whoo hooo vending machine dinner 🙂 lol. What stinks is that I’m addicted to coffee and we can’t bring anything in the room except clear bottles with no-spill lids that can only contain WATER…. which is better than nothing, but i know i’m going to be dragging butt without coffee if I’m having to pay attention after 7pm after being at work all day… thank heavens for the coffee in the guest services area (which I will make and clean up after since I’m the only one who drinks it at night evidently)
Oh, I’m also the only student that smokes & Ms. Vera is determined (already) to make me quit…lol – mostly because she had to let me back in the building during our break we had earlier in the night after I took a quick smoke. I like Ms. Vera a lot! I made sure I went well past the school entrance so that I wasn’t looking like a bum standing in front of their doors smoking – i went to the side of the shopping center and smoked and then came back, washed and sanitized my hands, downed some coffee and went back to class.
we were told that there was some kind of rivalry between night and day students and not to be offended if the day students didn’t talk to us because they were really just jealous that we had the best class – a little competition isn’t a bad thing, but a rivalry isn’t really a good thing either – I was sure it was an exaggeration until the “older” students told us that it was not only true, but that sometimes the day students wouldn’t even talk to them. WOW. I will break that tradition, I promise – it’s in my nature to be friends with everyone, so I don’t foresee
I asked whether or not we’d have a Student Council now since there are 6 of us in the evening part-time class. They don’t think so since the school hasn’t been open 6 months yet, but we’ll see I guess. I’d really like to be a part of that.
First impression of the instructor wasn’t the best, but I’m sure we’ll do better tonight now that all of the formalities are out of the way and we will begin going through the text book and having lesson plans in place.
Ms. Trena promises to help us immensely along the way if there is something that we just aren’t grasping. We were told that she won’t leave anyone behind and that if anyone in the class isn’t getting something, we’ll go over it again and again until everyone understands it. That’s a good thing too, but I don’t like too much coddling.
We’ll see – it was one night – so I’m seriously hoping that it can only get better.
Lipstick & Razorblades 