Culinary Arts Education - First Step

The first step to getting a great [culinary arts education] is researching what it will take to have a fulfilling culinary arts career.

You may like to cook or do great presentations or art designs on the foods that you prepare and present, but is that alone enough to justify a career in culinary arts?

A great culinary arts education demands attention to detail up front. For example, are you willing to put in the long hours necessary standing on your feet in an oftentimes overwhelmingly busy environment with lots of non-stop activity, boiling pots, hot stoves, banging pots and pans, and people screaming orders all around you? If you become a top chef in an exclusive restaurant, you will very likely be in charge of a crew of people where you will be giving orders, organizing schedules, coordinating every event that happens in the kitchen, along with preparing your outstanding, unique creations. The pressure will be great. Can you handle this first step? If you can, read on for the second step in getting a great culinary arts education.

How to Find the Best Cooking Schools

Finding the best cooking schools is a matter of research and elimination.

1. You will want to determine what your goals are. For example, are you more concerned about where the cooking schools will be located, how much it will cost to attend, their career placement record, their reputation for placing top chefs, etc?

2. Once you have determined what your goals are, you need to do a search on google. Type in "cooking schools in (your city, your state)" just to start in your own area and familiarize yourself with what your local schools have to offer. Take a look at the courses offered and see if anything catches your eye. Find out the answers to the other questions/goals above on each website to see if you can save yourself a lot of money by attending a culinary arts college right in your own local area.

3. When you find a college that you like, make an inquiry, either online or by calling the school and asking for the admissions department. Once you do this, expect to be on their mailing list and you will be contacted with information until you tell them no, take me off the list. The job of the admissions director is to make sure they get you interested in their cooking school so they may seem a little aggressive. You have the power though. Find out all you need and then if you aren't interested just tell them not to call you again.

4. Make a list of the schools that you want to visit and then go visit them. Take a tour of the campus, make sure you visit the career center to see what types of placement they will have available once you graduate, ask how much it's going to cost. See if they offer financial aid and find out what you need to have to be able to qualify. Write down all of this information and take it home with you so you can compare.

5. Decide on your final one or two culinary arts colleges and revisit them again if you need to.

6. Make your decision and stick with it until you graduate.