And So It Begins – My Thoughts on Culinary School

I start school tomorrow. I’m beyond excited and nervous and any other emotion you can think of. In preparation this weekend I’ve been doing homework. I got my books last Wednesday, so I’ve read and taken notes on chapter 1 of Professional Cooking, and I’m going to read chapter 1 of Serve Safe. I want to have two chapters from each book finished by the end of today. Does that make me a huge nerd? Ya know, I don’t really care if I’m a huge nerd or a know it all. This is what I love to do, so I’m going to get ahead and do my best, and my best is really good.

I just hope that all this work pays off. I’m not doing the Culinary Arts Associates degree program because I already have a bachelors degree in print journalism. Instead I’m doing a Culinary Arts Certificate program, which they’ve only had for about a year at Texas Culinary Academy. I asked if they had any statistics about the marketability of the students who did the associates degree versus the students who did the certificate. Unfortunately, because it’s so new they didn’t really have any statistics about that yet. So in an effort to make up for the name of the thing I’m working for (certificate not degree) I have set incredibly lofty goals for myself.

Expecting Culinary Excellence

I expect to be, and have set the goal of being an ‘A’ student. To me there is no reason I can’t be exemplary. This is what I want to do, and I want to be the best that I can be. This is something that I can physically practice if I don’t do it perfect the first time. I suppose I could have practiced journalism by continually writing stories, or web development by using things like javascript every day, but those things are more abstract. There isn’t a tangible end product that can be compared to the one that was previously made. I know some people are so passionate about reporting that they’re always thinking of stories to write, but I was just never that into it. But when it comes to cooking I do what journalists do, I constantly think of new recipes. I don’t have to try to get the creative juices flowing either, I just slip in to day dreams about things like the difference in flavor of parmesan, asiago and romano cheeses and which one I should use as a funnel shaped receptacle for my avocado ceviche…?

Getting My Money’s Worth

I also want to have exemplary attendance. TCA doesn’t want students to skip classes, but why would anyone want to? In college I skipped classes probably more than I should have. I think I skipped because I was never very excited about class. A four year university is so drawn out and long I think that many students lose sight of their goals and lose the passion for education that they may have had when they started. I started to forget why I was getting a degree, I just knew I needed to get one. When I finally did and it came time to get a job, I didn’t really want to be a reporter nor did I really want to be a programmer, but I was going to have to start paying back loans pretty quickly and needed an income. After working as a web developer for over a year, I now know what I want to do, and I’m going to do everything I can to do it perfectly. Since I’m only in school for 7 months I have to make the most out of every single class. I can’t skip if I want to stay ahead, not only that, but if you have 98% attendance you get red ropes to wear at graduation. I want those red ropes!

Activities and Involvement

Aside from good grades and perfect attendance, I want to get involved. I want to be a part of the community of the school. I plan to join the Bleu Print, which is TCA’s online news letter. I’ve read it over the last few months, and it’s not bad, but it could be improved so much, and I think I could help. It’s a PDF, and I’m not sure what program they’re using to create it, but I could help by using Adobe InDesign to clean up the layout a bit. They’re also using a scanned in image for the Le Cordon Bleu logo when they could just take a screen shot of an online version of the image if the don’t already have a vector graphic version. A made for web version would look so much better than a scanned in version. Also, I do have a journalism degree, I might as well use it; I would love to write stories about food. Food writing might be a direction I want to take my career eventually, so I think getting a start while I’m in school is a good idea. There are a few other student clubs that I would love to join like the American Culinary Federation (ACF) which hosts competitions and participates in certification exams, but I just don’t know if I’ll have time since I’m still working 30 hours per week. I think they would both be a lot of fun and would look great on my resume.

Presenting the Winning Dishes

Not only am I going to try to do all of those things, but I also want to get this whole thing paid for with scholarships if possible, so I’ll continue to compete in recipe competitions. There is no recipe with today’s post because I’ve been working on recipes for the Chilean Avocado recipe contest. I don’t want to give away my recipes before the contest is over, but these pictures are of some dishes that I will be submitting.

Starting tomorrow, I have a long and hectic 7 months ahead of me. The end result will be well worth the work, and I can’t wait to get started.