Is a Culinary School Right for Me?
So, you’re considering cooking school, a culinary degree. Perhaps you’re pondering a career change and wondering if a Culinary Arts program or degree is the way to go. From early career exploration to a second career, a degree, certificate, or just a handful of strategic courses in the Culinary Arts might just be the ticket to career fulfillment, happiness, or a thriving business.
Early Career Exploration
If you’re just exiting High School or maybe in your junior year and are exploring career options, you might consider a Culinary Arts degree or certificate. Taking Culinary Arts courses at your local community college, like classes offered at Laney College can give you practical experience and a few skills to start or just explore a career in restaurants and kitchens, without a huge investment.
There’s a lot of debate as to whether a culinary degree or culinary school is worth the money and the time. The debate usually centers on the cost of attending a school like the Culinary Institute of America or Escoffier. These are great schools, but also very expensive. Your local community college, however, offers practical, world-class culinary education from passionate, highly skilled professional chefs and bakers. These classes, degrees, and certificates are a mere fraction of the cost of the “high-end” or “brand name” culinary schools.
Opportunities for Different Learning Styles
If a classroom setting isn’t your thing, a Culinary Arts degree provides you different opportunities to learn. You’ll certainly have lectures and lessons to get through but coursework consists of practical, hands-on training in lab kitchens. You’ll have the chance to work directly in professional settings. The kitchen labs and commercial equipment used in your culinary school are the same as those used in commercial kitchens around the world.
From day one, quality culinary programs have you in the kitchen, cooking. You’ll start with simple recipes and techniques and advance to more involved, detailed preparation. Students at Laney College Culinary Arts eventually show off their skills at the Laney Bistro. This is a student-run restaurant on the Laney College campus, open to the public several days a week. The experience you get is practical and hands-on. The practical insights and guidance are from trained chefs, experienced restaurant managers, and professional bakers.
Displaying an interest and additional skills while being familiar with the way your restaurant operates, makes you invaluable to a restaurant manager or owner.
Advancement In Your Chosen Profession
Many people start working in restaurants early, even before they graduate high school. If that’s you and you’ve found success or inspiration working in a café, restaurant, or scratch kitchen then Culinary courses, a culinary certificate, or culinary degree might just be your ticket. A certificate, degree, or even a few courses could mean a promotion to the line, the pantry, or other coveted role in the kitchen where you’re already working.
If you’re already employed in a restaurant, even in the dish room or bussing tables, taking Culinary classes shows initiative. You can let your employer know that you’re serious about cooking as a career. This may open additional doors. If you’re trained in the dish room or the front of house and familiar with the way a particular restaurant operates, there’s a better chance at a promotion. Displaying an interest and additional skills while being familiar with the way your restaurant operates, makes you invaluable to a restaurant manager or owner. Even if you keep your culinary aspirations on the down-low until you’ve earned your certification, having real, practical restaurant experience and a Culinary Arts certificate on your resume will go a long way towards quickly securing a well-paid culinary career.
Culinary Practice Makes Perfect
With both real experience on a brigade line and hospitality a part of the curriculum at schools like Laney College, you get invaluable practice. You’ll get experience preparing, plating, and presenting dishes at volume. Courses will teach you to cook a variety of dishes and prepare cuts of meat simultaneously, to different doneness. These are necessary, coveted skills for busy restaurants. A certificate or degree, with practical experience, will give you a decisive advantage over candidates with just experience or just a certificate.
In every profession, it pays to keep your skills sharp. If you’re already working on a line in a scratch kitchen, making soups and sauces or running a pantry, you can benefit from the additional training and flexibility of community college Culinary Arts programs. Maybe you’re interested in something other than the American food you’re cooking. You can take a course in international cuisine. While you’re at it, you can sharpen skills and learn best practices in formulas and food costs. Or, you can learn to better manage staff and find opportunities as a restaurant manager, with principles of human resources and personnel management. Flexibility and affordability are just a few of the benefits of the culinary arts programs at Laney College and other local community colleges.
Starting on a New Career Path
Maybe you’ve been in a particular industry for a while and it feels like time for a change. Perhaps you’ve enjoyed fine dining or home cooking and think this might be your next career move. Maybe cooking is your happy place. Or, perhaps you’re just inspired by cooking and community and want the experience of running a successful restaurant or catering business. There are all kinds of reasons to start and run a restaurant business. You’re in good company. Many a successful entrepreneur or restaurateur has found their calling in a bakery, food truck, or restaurant kitchen. It’s a noble endeavor but not one without cost.
Let’s be absolutely real for a minute here. You can make a decent, if not well-paid, living as a professional chef. There are plenty of opportunities in restaurants, on cruise-ships, in hotels, corporate dining, or as a private chef to the stars. There are large kitchens at universities, hospitals, and resorts. Opportunities abound, to thrive and find a rewarding and lasting career. Both qualifications and experience are necessary, of course, to be an executive chef, head chef, or sous chef at these restaurants or large-scale kitchens. A lot of dedication, as with any profession, is also required. A Culinary Arts degree or certificate helps with all that. You can use your culinary classroom experience to get inspired in settings that are much lower-stakes. You can take a few chances, crack a few eggs, as they say, and find the rewards in the challenging restaurant industry.
Starting and running your own restaurant business becomes another matter entirely. With numerous barriers to entry and a notable failure rate, it makes sense to be prepared…
Barriers to Entry in Restaurants
Starting and running your own restaurant business becomes another matter entirely. With numerous barriers to entry and a notable failure rate, it makes sense to be prepared. To manage challenges and critical barriers to entry, like training and experience, you can consider the more cost-effective solutions. The professional training provided through career technical education programs is a smart move. The faculty in these programs have worked as professionals in the field. They are often world class professionals. Their experience and training is often international. Laney Baking & Pastry instructor, Lorriann Raji, for example, was trained at Richemont, in Luzern, Switzerland and the Ecole Nationale Superieur de la Patisserie in Yssingeaux, France.
The cost for these programs is literally a fraction of what you’d pay for a more renowned school. The opportunities are arguably the same, or potentially better, at the community college level.
In addition to working alongside skilled professionals in more low-pressure settings, you’ll gain industry and community insights. While you’re learning to manage cost controls, store and source food in class, you meet vendors. You can learn where meat, produce and other necessities are sourced by restaurants locally or regionally. Knowledge of where to get the best chops, or a great source for arugula, are important insights for a restaurateur looking to distinguish themselves in a tough industry. The more people, vendors and others you encounter and befriend while exploring your trade, the more support you might see in the course of running your business. Even if it just seems like a guy with a hand-truck and a crate of asparagus, it pays to be nice to everybody.
Advantages of Mobile Food Trucks
With the cost of owning and operating a brick-and-mortar restaurant or bakery continuing to rise, and the potential for costly failure, many restaurateurs and entrepreneurs are turning to food trucks as cost-effective alternatives. Industry reports suggest that the food truck industry grew an estimated 20% in 2019. The cost of establishing and operating a food truck business is significantly lower than a brick-and-mortar operation. The potential for a more sustainable and affordable launch of a business has led to a renaissance in mobile food. Pop-up kitchens and food-trucks also allow for more exploration and daring or cutting-edge culinary offerings, with somewhat less risk.
Food trucks also, arguably, lend to community engagement. Occupying otherwise unused urban spaces or operating at events where large, hungry crowds are gathered are great opportunities. Caterers, food truck operators, and entrepreneurs can profitably operate and explore new and remarkable food experiences. Retirees, ex tech-executives, and young people are all breaking into the restaurant business. These people are pursuing their passion and thriving with mobile food trucks. Some are even using food trucks as proving grounds for more innovative fusion restaurant concepts. They try mobile options before transitioning to brick-and-mortar locations. This is allowing for way more culinary exploration and opportunity. Even the occasional at-home-chef, inspired by family and friends for their miraculous meals, are breaking into the restaurant business. Many ambitious folks are starting food trucks as a side-hustle. Anyone can learn the requisite skills to excel in the restaurant and hospitality industry at Laney College Culinary Arts.
Cooking Classes for the At Home Chef
Even the amateur cook, at-home-chef, or culinary dabbler can develop or refine their cooking skills. You can pick up a couple of killer industry tricks from the pros with a few classes in a local Culinary Arts program. The availability of professional cooking classes for the community is one of the true benefits of a local community college Culinary Arts programs. For a few hundred dollars, anyone can have access to industry professionals and commercial kitchens. Once you take a couple of the fundamentals courses, you can focus on the courses that most interest or benefit you.
From cake decorating and patisserie to the principles of heat cooking or international cuisine, you can gain the same insights the professionals employ in the global kitchens you love. You can gain skills to create your own culinary masterpieces at home. Your goals don’t have to be earning a certificate or degree. Working or aiming to work in a restaurant or commercial kitchen isn’t necessary to get a world-class Culinary education from Laney College. These culinary professionals, the faculty and staff of the Culinary Arts department are happy to support and inspire your interests in the Culinary Arts, whatever they are.
Restaurants are, at their heart, community businesses.
A Community Based Business
From the very beginnings of human civilization, food has played a central role in community. Food is our common denominator. It’s the great equalizer. Cooking is a noble endeavor and there’s a great deal of power and pride in the Culinary Arts. For those with the interest, affordable training is available, from worldly, experienced and skilled professionals.
Restaurants are, at their heart, community businesses. Without them, we’re less connected and, probably less happy as a people. So, if you’re interested in joining the timeless tradition of the Culinary Arts, as a chef, line-cook, pantry manager, baker, or cake decorator, you have affordable options. You have opportunities for professional training and education in the Culinary Arts. Programs like those at Laney or community colleges near you make exploring culinary careers, an affordable and sensible option.
To learn more about Laney College Culinary Arts programs you can visit laney.edu/culinary_arts and Laney.edu. There you can find student aid details and other resources. Tuition support and grants can make your exploration of the Culinary Arts even more affordable. Culinary school is totally worth the time and effort. It’s through affordable, high quality programs like the degree, certificate and transfer programs offered at Laney College that make the potential boundless.