<p>I am currently a sophomore in high school meaning I'm gonna be getting serious about college next year, and I don't really know what I want to do. I want to one day run my own bakery/cakery, but I don't know what type of schooling I need. So if you have any suggestions as to whether I should study both business and culinary arts that be helpful. And if you could also maybe list some universities/schools that have both programs that would be amazing! So just, please, I am open to any type of advice and am in desperate need of some! Thank you</p>
<p>The CIA. Culinary Institute of America. Not a university , but the absolute best training in the culinary arts. You will learn the restaurant business as well.
Beware of most “professional” over priced culinary schools, especially “Le Cordon Bleu”.<a href=“http://www.ciachef.edu/[/url]”>http://www.ciachef.edu/</a></p>
<p>Many community colleges offer very good culinary AA degrees. Scottsdale CC in AZ offers a good program. I have noticed that many of the chefs in my small city were trained in the culinary arts program at our local CC.</p>
<p><a href=“https://aztransmac2.asu.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/acres.woa/wa/freeForm?id=24218[/url]”>MCCCD Program Description;
<p>A daughter of a friend did a undergraduate Bus degree at Ga Tech and then the culinary program at SCC and became a successful chef. An undegrad degree with an entrepreneurship focus would seem ideal.</p>
<p>The culinary Institute of America has a great program as do some other schools. Read Michael Ruhlman’s book “making of a chef” to get an account of what such as school is like. However all such programs are very expensive, and there is debate about whether it is worth it. I’m not going to presume to know the answer, but you can look up on the web and see what real chefs say about it.</p>
<p>As pointed out, many community colleges offer a strong program that will cover similar areas. You will also have the chance to take classes and business as well as just generally liberal arts. Whether college is worth it might depend on what your general views are regarding education. Do you just want to train and to get on with it, or do you also want to get a college education?</p>
<p>There is one thing I am SURE you ought to be doing right now. You should be working in the kitchen of a bakery. If you read biographies of chefs you’ll find out that many of them got their start around your age working in the kitchen of a family restaurant or just as a first job. It is one thing to say this is what you want for a career, it is another to do it day in and and day out. IMHO until you have a job doing this work for a few months any talk of the future is premature. First, do it long enough to get a sense of whether it’s really right for you. Only then is it the time to figure out how to get your career going.</p>
<p>Maybe Drexel (if you don’t mind the lack of a campus). They have a strong business school and have events where the culinary students cook dinners (or ice cream) for their peers to eat and give feedback.</p>
<p>Also Johnson & Wales in RI. Probably second to the CIA for culinary training. Business classes and experience is required.</p>
<p>One more bit of advice. You might go around and find that the bakeries in your area are not eager to hire a part-time HS student. Time for plan B. Career areas tend to have their norms, and one in the food industry is called the “stage”. This is an unpaid internship at a restaurant where a cook improves their skills and learns how the job is done (usually at a higher-end restaurant or bakery). In fact every culinary school is going to require you to do this before you graduate. So while what you need to do is not exactly a stage, the concept is familiar in the industry.</p>
<p>Now is the perfect time to act, with about 4 mos before summer break. It gives a natural time period for what you will commit to, with the reasonable explanation that come summer you need to find full-time paid work. And if you are a good intern a paid offer may very well come along from where you are doing the stage. </p>
<p>So if you can’t find a paid job, talk it over with your parents and come to an agreement over how much time they will let you work as an unpaid intern. Then go back to the bakeries you approached. You can even cast your net wider. Many better restaurants do their pastry work in-house. The price of free can be attractive, especially when you explain you are interested in a baking career and want to get some first-hand experience. You can find lots of tips online; for example [So</a> You Want to Stage (Intern) at a Restaurant](<a href=“http://herbivoracious.com/2012/03/so-you-want-to-stage-intern-at-a-restaurant.html]So”>http://herbivoracious.com/2012/03/so-you-want-to-stage-intern-at-a-restaurant.html)</p>
<p>If you aren’t ready to do this now than any talk right now about culinary training is mostly empty posturing. Its easy to talk about how someday one wants to do this or that since talk requires nothing. Showing up and actually doing it demonstrates real committment, and is the ideal thing at your age so that you can explore your potential future. Too many people spend years preparing for a future with no real knowledge of whether it is right for them; had a biology teacher in HS who had a nursing degree only to discover when she started working that she didn’t like being around sick people.</p>