Posted by Jason Ford on February 04, 1999 at 11:33:12:
In Reply to: Similar boat to Paris, Texas posted by Beth Kujawski on February 03, 1999 at 13:09:00:
Dear Beth:
I am also a career changer, and you'll find that there are A LOT of career changers in culinary school right now. A couple a years ago, I was within a few weeks of going to business school when I finally stopped trying to ignore my passion for cooking. I called the B-school, told them I wasn't coming and immediately started collecting info on culinary schools.
At first I thought I wanted to go full-time, so I investigated the CIA, CCA(California Culinary Academy in San Fran) and Kendall College (because I live in Chicago). While the CIA was impressive, I was leaning toward CCA until I talked to some people in the industry. Their input was basically that those schools are great if you're going there straight from high school. But, if you have a college degree, work experience, and you don't want to go into major debt to finance a 11/2 years at the CIA, then explore part-time programs.
I ended up at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago (CHIC). While the facilities aren’t even close to those of the CIA or CCA, I feel CHIC is providing me with a good foundation at a good price. I not trying to sell CHIC, but I do believe in part-time programs for career changers.
One other thing, if you do decide to go to school, I recommend trying to get some industry experience as soon as possible. While CHIC doesn’t have a formal internship program (one of the drawbacks of not going to a big name school), I was able to set up an arrangement at a large hotel. I only work there once a week (my time is a little tight with my full-time job and school 2 nights a week), but I learn more in 10 hours at the hotel than a month a school.
Good luck with your search and your decision. By the way, if it's worth anything, going to culinary school is one of the best decisions I have ever made!
Regards,
Jason
P.S. - If you are just starting your search, here are some URLs worth looking into:
http://www.baychef.com/
http://www.ciachef.edu/
http://www.chicnet.org
http://www.restaurant.org/links/linkschools.htm