Penn State student pursues hospitality career through additional degrees

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Through her diverse Penn State education, Fatmah Almeer has plans for a career that combines her love for the sciences with her desire to support the members of her community.

Almeer is a fourth-year Penn State student from Safwa, Saudi Arabia, with double majors in social data analytics in the College of the Liberal Arts and hospitality management in the College of Health and Human Development. As it happens, this is her second time pursuing Penn State degrees — she completed a bachelor of science degree in biotechnology with a minor in microbiology in 2017.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Almeer, a first-generation student, decided to return to school to advance her career outside of the biotech field.

“I loved the environment of Pennsylvania, and Penn State really stood out when I was looking at schools initially,” Almeer said. “When I decided to return to school, I figured why not go back because I loved it the first time. I chose hospitality because I saw myself aligning with it, and loved science and data so I added social data analytics.”

Last summer, Almeer began working with Hilton as a development strategy and operations intern, an opportunity that allowed her to use skills she gained from both of her majors. In this position, she specializes in data analytics and works with the strategy team to analyze growth and where the company should expand next.

“I love to be involved as much as possible and take on any project I can,” Almeer said. “I actually found out about this position through the School of Hospitality Management. They bring in new companies to speak with students. I attended one of Hilton’s information sessions and knew it was a good fit.”

Almeer received enrichment funding from the Liberal Arts Career Enrichment Network to support her internship experience.

“The enrichment funding was helpful to minimize the cost of living in Virginia when I had to move for my internship,” she said. “It definitely took away some of the financial pressure I had since I had to pay for two apartments at the same time — where I lived in State College, and where I moved to for the internship.”

While the internship helped her develop technical skills in both the hospitality and data fields, “In this role, I perform market studies and create dashboards and analytics tools, applying the principles I’ve learned in social data analytics to translate complex data into actionable insights that enhance decision making in the hospitality sector,” Almeer explained.

But the experience also helped her to grow personally. As a result of the experience, she said, she has become more confident in herself and her work.

“Hilton gave me the autonomy to do a lot, so I was able to expand my skills independently while they were always there to support me,” Almeer said. “I gained a lot of corporate communication skills and was able to develop my presentation and public speaking skills. I think the biggest thing I learned is to not be afraid to ask questions to make sure the job is done right.”

Following the internship, Almeer said she hopes to continue working in data analytics in the hospitality industry.

“I love working on problems and seeing the bigger picture in situations, which is why I’ve loved working on the back end of the hospitality industry,” Almeer said. “I get to use skills from across all fields and transfer those skills properly.”

Outside of her internship, Almeer works with Penn State’s Food Decisions Research Laboratory. There, she helps lead the FDRL Free Food Map, a feature in the Penn State Go app that directs students facing food insecurity to locations where they can access free food. So far, they have over 200 locations in Pennsylvania entered on the map and are hoping to further expand to other states.

“I hope to get more people involved and push the project even further,” she added. “Previous students started it, and I wanted to take it over and push it further, so I’m hoping to have the same impact for new students. It’s a great way to give back to the community and has really pushed me to apply more than just basic knowledge to the project.”

Looking forward, Almeer and her team said they are hoping to develop the Free Food Map to be a resource not just for students but all residents of Pennsylvania. Additionally, they hope to partner with other universities in the future to provide resources to students across the country.

Almeer has found success across all aspects of her college career and gives a lot of the credit to her liberal arts education, she said. Among other things, her courses have expanded her knowledge across various fields, and allowed her to think more critically.

“If I have any questions, the faculty and staff are always there to support me,” Almeer said. “When I added my social data analytics major, I took a lot of classes I never would have expected. Taking political science courses and exploring other fields across the liberal arts has given me new knowledge and makes me think in different ways.”