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Having my doubts, is it normal

post #1 of 11
3/19/07 at 7:24am
Thread Starter 
So I guess this goes out to all the people who have gone to culinary school.

Has anyone had doubts about what they were doing?

I have made alot of sacrafices to beable to go to school.

I did over 750 hours of OT last year at work which was about $20,000 which is now gone, (im a career changer)

I have closed up my house in PA and moved me and the fiancee and our 2 dogs back to our parent house on LI.

I still work full time and go to school full time and only have 1 day off if that a week and its filled with doing home work. The other days with school and work are 14 to 17 hours long (i love long days)

I dont know if its becuase im about 1/4 of the way threw the program,

maybe its becuase my chef pushes and pushes and pushes and pushes so hard,

Maybe its just all the sacrifices ive been making, im not sure

Anyone else have these doubts or any doubts?

Just wondering

Either way im not going to give up and jsut walk away on something I have loved for a long time now.

BTW.... I have worked in a resturant for a few days (all I could do then it was the slow season and they couldnt use me, long story) so I did get a good taste for the business and I know what im in for,
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post #2 of 11
3/19/07 at 4:53pm
Would you rather cook than do just about anything else? We all have our limits, of course, ;) but is food your life? Do you love to work under pressure, knowing that what you do will make people happy? Can you find ways to relax that won't do any more damage to your already-stressed body? Do you feel that there is nothing else (other than loved ones) that you want to deal with every day?

If so, you are in the right place, my friend. Being in the foodservice industry is, as far as I am concerned, a calling: it is life, it is breath -- even as it makes us more tired than we ever knew we could be. There is nothing like it. If you feel that way, go for it! :D
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post #3 of 11
3/24/07 at 6:56am
Thread Starter 
It is defintly where I want to be. It is what I want to do and its the type of enviroment I love on a daily basis.

I think my doubts was coming from my first quater finals. Its now over and done with and I think I got As in all my classes but I have to wait a week and see.

As my chef said the other day. He was kicking us in the butt to get us across the line.

thanks for the advise
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post #4 of 11
3/25/07 at 6:48am
Teachers will employ methods like that in the first semester to weed out the ones who won't make it through the program. Remember that some others around you are probrably in the same boat but may not have the love for the field so thats $20k down the drain unless they call it quits early enough to get some of that money back. My chef program had nearly 5000 students, 1/3 dropped out by end of the first semeseter, another 1/3 made it through and graduated, and maybe only 1/2 of those graduates actually got jobs in the industry.

A pretty small number when you do the math eh! At least you know this is what you want to do so stay strong.
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post #5 of 11
3/25/07 at 8:15am
Similar story with my culinary training, although on a smaller scale. I don't know about the school as a whole, but my class started with 17. A couple dropped out early on when they realized they couldn't hack it (for a number of reasons). Another lost a few months due to a non-kitchen-related accident, one violated his parole :( , and we picked up a few others who had started with earlier classes but had dropped out for a while (again, multiple reasons). As far as I know, a few didn't finish their externships and several never did manage to get hired in professional kitchens of any kind. Ten years out, I don't know who might still be in the industry -- I still use my training for work, but I'm not in kitchens any more. Do I miss that? YOU BET!!!

(This makes me think about Googling on some of the more promising people in my class, to see what they're doing.)
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post #6 of 11
3/25/07 at 10:41pm
My background is electronics. When I started training for my Associates degree, we had 60+ students. 4 graduated two years later. Those that finished the program *wanted* to finish.

I suspect it's the same for culinary school. People start for many reasons and finish because that's what they want to do.
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post #7 of 11
3/26/07 at 6:02pm
Well thats how it "should" be but thats not always the case with many paths, not just culinary. There was 1 student who was into engineering, went through the program and failed, retook his failed coarses and marginally passed yet he sometimes calls me up asking if anyone is shopping and at the same time, continues to remind me how much he hates cooking. Well that was a nice waste of daddy's money!

I hate to admit this but I'm a little bit like that myself. My original passion and still is pastries, I absolutly love baking but I couldn't find a job anywhere close enough for me to rely on public transit (our subways don't start running till 6am). I didn't want to totally waste my culinary training so I went into the chef program with hours that I can work with. I still like doing what I do but I really love baking. Who knows, maybe I'll pick it up again down the road.
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post #8 of 11
3/27/07 at 4:31am

Chefedb

It is a great business and you will surely never starve. There are many sacrafices, like working holidays, long hours,kitchen heat and dealing with a wide variety of trmperaments. As far a school,, as a former instructor in the nyc board of ed. I can tell you its up to the individual.
As far as what some of the schools charge, to much. I used to tell parents that I would get their son a job in a place for a year where they get paid. Ater that initial year if they still liked it, then go to school and work part time. Like any other industry it requires learning and working yourself up the ladder. good luck Chefedb
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post #9 of 11
3/27/07 at 1:47pm
I have my doubts too, which is why I do this part-time and go to school for something else.
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post #10 of 11
3/31/07 at 9:48am
Thread Starter 
Well i got threw it all. I think im just streessing myself out about other things which is making me stress but what ever. Ill take it one day at a time.

I finished the quater with a 3.9 GPA and hope to geta 4.0 next quater
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post #11 of 11
4/19/07 at 8:32am
Congrats on the GPA. It sounds like you've got what it takes to make this thing work. Good luck with the course, and don't let one chef (in my case it's profs, but same deal) crush your spirit or make you think you don't want to do what you love. It's worth it in the end to push through and get to where you want to go.
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