Top 10 Things You Should Know Before Getting In Culinary School

Getting into culinary school seems to be something that a lot of people want to consider and that is because at the end of the day, they will learn how to cook delicious foods that are going to be enjoyed by everyone, including their friends and family. Yet culinary school is not as simple as you may think and there are a lot of things that you need to know about it before taking the plunge. Regardless if you just want to be a chef and work for a popular restaurant or if you just want to learn how to cook your own food, you won’t be able to achieve these goals unless you are aware of the following things.

10. Getting Into The Food Industry Changes Your Life

The minute you say yes to going to culinary school, you will need to say goodbye to your old life and that is because you will only be talking about food and stuff that is related to food and cooking and that means you need to have a certain breed of friends whom you can talk about such things. If your current friends don’t share your passion and you keep on pushing it to them saying just how great the fish fillet you prepared today was, chances are they’ll get very pissed off.

9. You’ll Cry Very Often

Most chefs take it person when it comes to preparing food that wasn’t done right according to the clients and this means you will get to be disappointed and also cry a lot. While some chefs will cry in the bathroom, a lot of them will do this at home or in their dorms. As a result, you need to be very certain that this is the industry you want to be a part of, since if you’re not a strong man mentally speaking, you will get to have some pretty rough times.

8. No More Free Time And Goodbye Social Life

When you consider social gatherings, you will always get to see that there are drinks on the tables and also some very good food, but who do you think cooks and prepares them? Well, it’s the chef of course. As a result, you will get to always be in the kitchen preparing these things instead of sharing some quality time with your family and friends. Yes, you will work to please the people you love and get to see their smiling faces, but you won’t get to be there with them as they talk about what they’ve been up to lately and so forth.

7. Endless Temptations

When you become a chef there will always be temptations and this means that you are certainly going to get a bit fatter. For some, there is no limit to how much they will eat, but this generally ends up badly. You need to learn how to say not to food, no matter how delicious it looks. Do consider getting a gym subscription in order to stay in shape, since when you get too overweight, it will affect your work as a chef as well.

6. You’re Not Really A Chef Even If You Graduate From Culinary School

You are not a chef because you have some papers that prove that. You are a chef because you know the ins and outs of the culinary industry and you know how to prepare hundreds of different foods. Real chefs are also people who are proud of what they do and can always come up with amazing results even if the kitchen they’re given to work in is not a top of the line one.

5. Be Careful With Addictions

You would be very surprised to hear that a lot of chefs have a hard time coping with their addictions, regardless if we are talking about the addition to bacon, alcohol, or even drugs. As a chef you work very long hours and this can be very bad for your mental and physical health. Because of that, many chefs will take the wrong path of drugs and booze which is slowly gong to destroy them.

4. Learn How To Put Your Sensitivity Asides

There is a very stressful environment you have to put up with when you’re in a kitchen. You will therefore get to hear a lot of chefs swearing and that is because they want to get all of that pressure they accumulated throughout the day out of their system. While it’s okay to swear in the kitchen, be sure you don’t do that in front of the clients.

3. You’ll Always Get To Be Tired

When you’re not in the kitchen, you’ll need to wake up early in the morning in order to attend the culinary school classes. At the same time, you may also want to save more money or make more money and choosing to work as a baker will make your schedule even more crowded.

2. You’ll Meet A Lot Of Crazy People And Crazy Chefs

In the culinary world you’ll get to meet a lot of crazy people. Therefore, expect to meet that one girl that only eats cheese for breakfast, that chef who brews some wine in his bedroom (illegally of course) and that crazy chef who wants you to use chopsticks during his Asian food class.

1. Making Money In The First Five To Ten Years After Graduating Is Impossible

For a two years degree at culinary school you are likely to pay around sixty thousand dollars and making that money back fast is not possible unless you’re a super chef with amazing marketing skills and super delicious foods. While it’s true that culinary school can open a lot of doors for you, you will make between eight and sixteen dollars an hour in the beginning and that is very little to begin with. Added to that is that some chefs will consider working in international locations where conditions are not that great and you are going to be forced to work long hours for a low pay.
Going to culinary school is certainly a choice of your own, but you definitely need to know these details before considering it. So what do you think about them? Are they enough to stop you from following your dream? Just let us know more about it in the comments section below!