You'll be working long and difficult hours. It's not uncommon to work 10- to 12-hour shifts. Because chefs often have a difficult and inconsistent schedule, balancing a culinary career with a personal life can be difficult. No career option is right for everyone.
The culinary arts are exciting and rewarding, but that doesn't mean everyone is happy as a cook or chef. If you see yourself in any of these descriptions, a culinary clue may not be for you. In short, if you're starting out in the culinary arts because of glamour and fame, you might want to consider trying your luck to be a pop star. Being a chef is a difficult job and no one gives you a cooking program right out of cooking school.
Having a realistic view of what you're getting into will greatly help future cookers. The work can be difficult, requiring long hours, repetition, and working under tight time limits. Without a doubt, Friedman doesn't think he could have gotten to where he is without a culinary school. I've met some people who may have worked their way up, but in general, I don't know many people who have followed that path.
It's about who you know, and if you haven't been to school, you don't know anyone in the industry who gets that job as a preparatory cook. Even if you've been to cooking school, it's very difficult to get a job. You have to come out into the light. You can start by washing dishes, but most of the guys who do the dishes are willing to do the work for a fee, and that's all.
I've met people who have gone from dishwasher to cook, but it takes a long time. Professional cooking is a physical sport and, in addition, a marathon. Strong physical endurance and stamina are required. You'll stay on your feet for many hours straight; you'll have blisters and calluses on your hands, burns on your arms, and cuts on your fingers.
Stress can be overwhelming, especially during peak breakfast, lunch, or dinner times. There's never enough time to get things done, and you have to consistently multitask to stay ahead of the curve. A focused and organized cook will overcome these obstacles. More people than ever are pursuing the dream of running a kitchen or turning a tortilla around on television.
Cooking school enrollment has increased in recent years, while tuition rates and student loan debt are increasing at the same time. For a profession with famously low starting salaries, it's hard to know if culinary school is worth it. Yes, these cooks can find work as private chefs or somewhere else to put their degree to good use, a decision that Chang says makes a lot of sense, since everyone is respected and very difficult, and God bless them because it's a damn tough business. The chef, managers, and owners may not be the nicest people, and some of the people you work with may be rude and difficult to get along with.
Johnson got a big financial deal in the CIA thanks to his hard work applying for scholarships, but he still believes the school has value. Spence, Chang, Corbett and Cohen agree that it's easy to learn all the necessary technical and organizational skills just by spending hours in a restaurant and working hard. Amanda Cohen, from Dirt Candy, was once invited to speak in a class at the Johnson %26 Wales Charlotte campus, where instructors asked her to talk about the difficulties of a chef's life. They have invested the time, energy and money to develop their skills and become complete cooks or cooks.
