College of Culinary Arts
Obviously you’re interested in a career in the culinary arts. Here’s what you want to remember more than anything: location of the cooking school, culinary degrees that they offer, their facilities, the total cost of the program, the size of the class you’ll be in, and the institution’s reputation. Plus, in major cities, you’ll have choices of what type of culinary school you want to go to: classic, pastry or baking. It’s easy to request information, especially in this day and age of the Internet. Select something that interests you and ask for them to send you an information packet. It’s that easy.
I’ll tell you about the top four culinary schools, and then I’ll share with you the advice I gave my son before selecting a college of culinary arts. The Art Institutes has a great Associates Program, and along with their Bachelor Program, The International Culinary Schools are hard to beat. They’ve been doing this for years and it shows. You’ll leave there with their experience and expertise along with job placement help.
Next, Le Cordon Bleu has 15 schools throughout America that is primarily a college of culinary art. Founded over 100 years ago, Le Cordon Bleu is totally immersed in the culinary and hospitality world. They too have a great network of employer partners that work with them to find you best placement in the culinary world.
The French Culinary Institute can help you by instilling in you what is needed to be successful in the world of cuisine using what they call their Total ImmersionSM training system. Small, hands-on classes are customary and hours of teaching by former chefs make the French Culinary Institute a professional environment that will assure you a place in the business.
Specialization is becoming vogue and the Italian Culinary Academy has gone out of its way to make sure graduates are not only ready to lead in the Italian restaurant industry, but to own and know how to run establishments. It’s in New York at the International Culinary Center and run by chef Cesare Casella. You have the option to train both in the Big Apple and Italy.
So you can see, the field is wide open and you can pick and choose. What I told my son, Dennis, was that you need to look for a college of culinary arts that you feel right with. In other words, you must have good vibes about the place. And the best way to do this is to first, search online and view the website. Find out all you can, and then contact them for an information packet. This can be done easily online as well, although at some point I wanted my son to actually talk to a human. You can get so much out of talking to someone on the phone. You’ll know immediately if they are nice, if they know what they’re talking about, or if they sound like they’re trying to sell you something. It’s very important once you narrow your choices down to a few colleges to start a relationship, talk to someone who can give you answers, with the school in question. Are they helpful every time? Do they answer your questions? All of this is important to help you develop a feeling for the school. You want to go where you feel the best. Research starting with the schools we list for you here today.
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