New Las Cruces hotel offers NMSU students hands-on hospitality education

The new Courtyard Marriott hotel just up the street form New Mexico State University opened its doors Thursday morning and it’s partnering with the school to provide students unique opportunities.

Fifty hospitality students are now employees at the hotel, getting to put what they are learning in the classroom into practice.

“It’s better to be able to experience it versus just doing it on a day to day in a book,” Dalton Massa, a freshman student at NMSU said.

The students joined city, school and state leaders, including New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan-Grisham in a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening and the partnership.

“Any student, anybody, looking to change, enrich their careers will tell you that the experience they have with the private sector in that context of learning is likely the experience that either holds them in a career or not,” Governor Lujan-Grisham said during the ceremony.

Students already thankful for the real life experience they are getting in the industry.

“Everybody has a different story,” said Adam Fuller, a senior at NMSU, about learning the importance of empathy in hospitality. “And that’s something, you can’t get in the classroom setting.”

The students get paid to learn in all areas of the hotel by working at the front desk, the bar, the restaurant and other parts o the hotel. They don’t just learn their craft, they get to live it.

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