Are professional schools for amateurs as well

[jersey13]

I fail to understand why a for-profit organisation should go to such lengths to discourage people who have both the qualifications and the means to attend their classes.

Sure, a class can sustain a small percentage of hobbyists without interfering substantially with the educational mission -- with the quality of the product being sold by the for-profit organization. But there's a limit, and as a paying student with professional aspirations I would consider my own investment to be devalued by the presence of a large contingent of hobbyists.

I don't understand how anything would be devalued if the hobbyists have to endure the same courses and meet the same standards to achieve the end result of a diploma.

If you have a class of 100% hobbyists and they don't cut the muster, then they fail. Plain and simple. Just like any other degree. They get the same opportunity. If they choose to screw around, then that's their problem.

[Fat Guy]

Because it's not passive school-by-mail, and it's not even an every-person-for-him/herself situation. There's a class dynamic. There are groups, teams, etc. And if you fill the class with hobbyists it will change that dynamic.

[beans]

If the dynamic "fell" wouldn't the instructor tailor their lessons to light a fire under some of the hobbiests' lagging bottoms?

[rickster]

I don't understand how anything would be devalued if the hobbyists have to endure the same courses and meet the same standards to achieve the end result of a diploma.

If you have a class of 100% hobbyists and they don't cut the muster, then they fail. Plain and simple. Just like any other degree. They get the same opportunity. If they choose to screw around, then that's their problem.

Having a high number of "hobbyists" in a class is going to change the nature of the instruction just through their classroom interaction. If 100%, or a significant portion of a class fails, someone is going to start questioning what is wrong with the instruction or what is wrong with the type of students admitted to the program.

[beans]

I don't understand how anything would be devalued if the hobbyists have to endure the same courses and meet the same standards to achieve the end result of a diploma.

If you have a class of 100% hobbyists and they don't cut the muster, then they fail. Plain and simple. Just like any other degree. They get the same opportunity. If they choose to screw around, then that's their problem.

Having a high number of "hobbyists" in a class is going to change the nature of the instruction just through their classroom interaction. If 100%, or a significant portion of a class fails, someone is going to start questioning what is wrong with the instruction or what is wrong with the type of students admitted to the program.

Exactly!!!

[Dave the Cook]

I fail to understand why a for-profit organisation should go to such lengths to discourage people who have both the qualifications and the means to attend their classes.

Sure, a class can sustain a small percentage of hobbyists without interfering substantially with the educational mission -- with the quality of the product being sold by the for-profit organization. But there's a limit, and as a paying student with professional aspirations I would consider my own investment to be devalued by the presence of a large contingent of hobbyists.

I don't understand how anything would be devalued if the hobbyists have to endure the same courses and meet the same standards to achieve the end result of a diploma.

If you have a class of 100% hobbyists and they don't cut the muster, then they fail. Plain and simple. Just like any other degree. They get the same opportunity. If they choose to screw around, then that's their problem.

One of the things that gets devalued is the reputation of the school as a serious educational institution. This in turn jeopardizes its placement rate -- the percentage of graduates who go on to work in the field. To someone who wants to be a cook this is a big factor in the decision to attend a particular school. So it's placement rate suffers, and it attracts fewer would-be professionals. Eventually, the school will have to decide whether it is going to be a school for hobbyists or professionals, and market itself accordingly.

Edit to add: among some educational accreditation boards, placement rate figures significantly in the equation for accreditation itself. Without accreditation, a school cannot offer a recognized degree, and its students are ineligible for most forms of student aid.

Edited July 1, 2003 by Dave the Cook (log)

[Steve Klc]

Now we're starting to get somewhere and I promise to catch up--but I think we're getting toward what Lesley's real--and valid observation is. There's a problem with our perception of cooking schools--how prospective students and wannabe chefs perceive them--and in many cases the schools are culpable in promulgating these misperceptions.

Shaw said "Once a school accepts a student into a program, it has a vested interest in seeing that student graduate. The time to be selective is pre-admission."

Slkinsey responds "Hmm... I'm coming late to this discussion, but I would not say that is strictly true. Some schools (I am thinking of top music schools in particular) are structured so that people without the proper motivation and/or talent are encouraged to drop the program or switch to a related course of study."

And there's the rub--that discouragement, that active weeding out, ain't happening in the new generation for-profit, private expensive cooking schools. And there is certainly no admission requirement, selective or otherwise. Your check clears, you're on the chef track. Or at least you are allowed to delude yourself that you are. How many times has some wannabe read some supportive claptrap from well-meaning but ultimately misguided souls--usually current cooking school students still flush with hope that their serious cash investment will not go to waste, or graduates no longer actually working as a chef if indeed they ever were called chef, yet still boosting the newbies on with stuff like "you get out of it what you put into it" and "it doesn't matter where you go to school as long as you work hard."

I say, prove it. I think Lesley is arguing for the same thing--some sense of realism in how we approach cooking schools and the fact there are very few remaining true vocational cooking schools--what we have are schools teaching avocational classes to amateurs and housewives on one track and on another parallel track teaching pseudo-professional classes to amateurs, housewives and potential career-changers--but that those pseudo-professional classes taught by the same instructors in the same schools with a slightly different curriculum still underwhelm--and don't actually prepare those that graduate realistically to do well in the job of chef or cook or intern as the strictly vocational schools or the guild and apprenticeship systems of France once did. I agree with this and agree with Lesley wholeheartedly.

For those touting these pricey possibly privileged schools, tell me about the rest of your class and how many have made it? Tell me about the money you earned, how eagerly you were embraced by the professional food scene and how quickly you paid off your loans. Tell me how long you held out until you bailed out because it was too tough or too unrewarding that you had to find your niche somewhere else.

Tell me if you are still hanging on. Tell me about how many Latin line cooks are running or peeling circles around you, grateful for their job, who never went to Cordon Bleu or FCI or wherever. Tell me if you ever got beyond that level in a kitchen before bailing--and whether you were replaced by a culinary school graduate or a dishwasher.

It sounds harsh, I know. Professional cooking is harsh.

The reason you have to tell me this is the schools will not.

Slkinsey continues: "Since a music school is essentially a vocational school (as distinct from a liberal arts school) it seems fairly directly comparable to a professional cooking school. This is to say that the main thrust of these schools is to prepare students to make a living as professional musicians (insofar as this is possible in today's arts economy) or professional cooks. Music schools do not typically accept amateurs or people who are not interested in pursuing a professional life in music into their regular curriculum, and I don't see why cooking schools would either."

Except they do. Again, if the check clears. It isn't directly comparable since Lesley's point is, essentially, that our awareness of cooking schools in this country and perhaps like Cordon Bleu is flawed-- that schools are no longer vocational--no longer what they were, which was a substitute for going to University and instead a blue collar vocational alternative for teenagers. See, the cooking schools Lesley is talking about--which a few of us participating on this thread have attended, in my case I've taught at quite a few of them. These schools are for career-changers, college graduates, with money or the willingness to go into debt. Yes there are exceptions, the teenager in an FCI professional class, but the raison d etre is to separate money from people who can afford to have money separated from them, who are willing to give a shot to pursuing their supposed passion. The schools Lesley is talking about FEED on this. And I think we may not be doing a good enough job here on eGullet presenting an accurate perception of the value of these schools.

Oh, and it is blue collar until you become a celebrity or star chef. Then your job description changes. This is the key carrot that cooking schools extend and why schools have a vested interest in graduating their students: the percentage of graduates who "get jobs in the field upon graduation" is a very significant inducement, as is touting the number of job offers a graduate has to choose from. I've written this elsewhere but I'd rather see a cooking school reveal what percentage of their graduates are still employed in the field after 5 years and how much of their student loans they've been able to pay back in that time from those great job offers.

The answers might surprise you.

[sandra]

Because it's not passive school-by-mail, and it's not even an every-person-for-him/herself situation. There's a class dynamic. There are groups, teams, etc. And if you fill the class with hobbyists it will change that dynamic.

Why? How? Are "hobbyists" somehow inferior to aspiring chefs?

[rickster]

QUOTE (rickster @ Jul 1 2003, 05:56 PM)

QUOTE 

I don't understand how anything would be devalued if the hobbyists have to endure the same courses and meet the same standards to achieve the end result of a diploma.

If you have a class of 100% hobbyists and they don't cut the muster, then they fail. Plain and simple. Just like any other degree. They get the same opportunity. If they choose to screw around, then that's their problem. 

Having a high number of "hobbyists" in a class is going to change the nature of the instruction just through their classroom interaction. If 100%, or a significant portion of a class fails, someone is going to start questioning what is wrong with the instruction or what is wrong with the type of students admitted to the program. 

Exactly!!!

I did not mean to imply this is a good thing.

[sandra]

For those touting these pricey possibly privileged schools, tell me about the rest of your class and how many have made it?  Tell me about the money you earned, how eagerly you were embraced by the professional food scene and how quickly you paid off your loans.

Steve, I can tell you that 90% of my class is employed or will be, all by 4 and 5 star hotels, Michelin star or high end restaurants - everywhere I have gone to apply for a stage I have been quite welcome, as have other peers -

I can also tell you that the courses that comprise the Grande Diplome are in no way "dumbed down" for anyone - the course is the essentially the same worldwide...

I still don't understand why these schools are given such a lynching - Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, no one seems to think these schools are the devil's spawn, why so then for cooking schools?

[beans]

QUOTE (rickster @ Jul 1 2003, 05:56 PM)

QUOTE 

I don't understand how anything would be devalued if the hobbyists have to endure the same courses and meet the same standards to achieve the end result of a diploma.

If you have a class of 100% hobbyists and they don't cut the muster, then they fail. Plain and simple. Just like any other degree. They get the same opportunity. If they choose to screw around, then that's their problem. 

Having a high number of "hobbyists" in a class is going to change the nature of the instruction just through their classroom interaction. If 100%, or a significant portion of a class fails, someone is going to start questioning what is wrong with the instruction or what is wrong with the type of students admitted to the program. 

Exactly!!!

I did not mean to imply this is a good thing.

Neither did I.

[rdailey]

Sure, a class can sustain a small percentage of hobbyists without interfering substantially with the educational mission -- with the quality of the product being sold by the for-profit organization. But there's a limit, and as a paying student with professional aspirations I would consider my own investment to be devalued by the presence of a large contingent of hobbyists.

I'm just not seeing this... How exactly does a "hobbyist" interfere with classes at CIA? By asking dumb questions?? I would assume some of the best chefs to come from CIA asked dumb questions, scorched their veloutes and never learned to tourne correctly. What is the effect lousy students, that intend on being chefs, have on the brighter students?

[Fat Guy]

Because it's not passive school-by-mail, and it's not even an every-person-for-him/herself situation. There's a class dynamic. There are groups, teams, etc. And if you fill the class with hobbyists it will change that dynamic.

Why? How? Are "hobbyists" somehow inferior to aspiring chefs?

They're not inferior. They're just in the wrong place. The more closely tailored an educational mission is to the actual needs of the students, the better those needs will be served. It's the reason that, in a large enough city, you might have a specialized high school for students who aspire to go into the performing arts. Now are you telling me that if you filled the High School of Performing Arts with a bunch of kids who can sing but don't have any real desire to become singers, that won't change things?

And this is all just in defense of the general argument. I entirely agree with Steve Klc that, fundamentally, cooking schools suck. Education in general is totally overrated as compared to on-the-job learning. But that's really another thread!

Edited July 1, 2003 by Fat Guy (log)

[Steve Klc]

Of course you've been welcomed as a stage Sandra. You're an entry level grunt, the industry feeds on those like you fresh out of school looking for real world experience. In fact you pay all this money just to then go out and intern and begin your real instruction, to learn how to really do things in a kitchen. That's part of Lesley's point. Nice work if you can get it, these cooking schools. Interns, externs and various forms of free labor have always made the savviest kitchens perform just a little better. More hands. Better bottom line.

El Bulli takes on professional chefs--already with their own careers--as unpaid interns for the season. They work for free for 6 months and are damn lucky to do so. It's harder to make the case a cooking school grad is lucky to step into their first job if they are ill-prepared for the long haul. And what determines this, again, is not how many of your current class gets a entry level job offer paying something but how many of the 1998 class are still working and making something they can live and thrive on.

I'm guessing you're still in school--as I said I haven't caught up. I also don't know where you go--but please, the business about the curriculum being the same everywhere is also claptrap. It matters tremendously who your instructors are and how good, how energized, how commited they are--and in my world--again, from the perspective of someone who went to a cooking school and enjoyed it, has cooked for 10 years professionally and still enjoys it, and who also has had the good fortune to teach at several of the cooking schools that have been mentioned on this thread and some not--FCI, NYRS, Peter Kump, NYC Technical College--it is much more about the instructor than the curriculum. Schools want prospective students to think it is about the Jacques Torres or the Nick Malgieri curriculum but it is really about the teacher in the class you actually spend your time with.

[Varmint]

Education in general is totally overrated as compared to on-the-job learning. But that's really another thread!

C'mon, everything I do today I learned in law school!

[beans]

Because it's not passive school-by-mail, and it's not even an every-person-for-him/herself situation. There's a class dynamic. There are groups, teams, etc. And if you fill the class with hobbyists it will change that dynamic.

Why? How? Are "hobbyists" somehow inferior to aspiring chefs?

They're not inferior. They're just in the wrong place.

Who are you to determine that?

[Fat Guy]

This isn't about me. It's about the argument.

[Varmint]

Because it's not passive school-by-mail, and it's not even an every-person-for-him/herself situation. There's a class dynamic. There are groups, teams, etc. And if you fill the class with hobbyists it will change that dynamic.

Why? How? Are "hobbyists" somehow inferior to aspiring chefs?

They're not inferior. They're just in the wrong place.

Who are you to determine that?

He's just offering his opinion -- it's the cooking schools who are failing to make this decision. It's about collecting tuition money. And therein lies the problem that has been addressed time and time again on this thread.

[bilrus]

Education in general is totally overrated as compared to on-the-job learning. But that's really another thread!

I am in a business that most who are in it feel cannot be learned in school - running political campaigns. The only relevant experience is that which can be learned by actually working on a campaign. There are a relatively few schools that offer graduate level programs that teach you the basics and the theory. But in hiring these people would be in line behind someone with no education but experience working on just one campaign.

It seems from the comments of many of the professional chefs on eGullet that cooking schools are essentially the same thing - a short cut way to get in the door. Would a freshly minted CIA graduate have a leg up on someone who has spent a year working on the line in a real restaurant kitchen? By that argument, then aren't these "non-hobbyists" who are going to these cooking shchools just as guilty of being dilletantes as the "hobbyists"?

[beans]

He's just offering his opinion -- it's the cooking schools who are failing to make this decision.  It's about collecting tuition money.  And therein lies the problem that has been addressed time and time again on this thread.

Oh I know it is an opinion, but a bold one I might say! But is it the school's duty to examine and investigate one's intentions for making application to attend same?

This is cooking school! Not med school!

[Fat Guy]

By that argument, then aren't these "non-hobbyists" who are going to these cooking shchools just as guilty of being dilletantes as the "hobbyists"?

No they're just guilty of being suckers!

[slkinsey]

Once a school accepts a student into a program, it has a vested interest in seeing that student graduate. The time to be selective is pre-admission.

Hmm... I'm coming late to this discussion, but I would not say that is strictly true.

Not strictly true, but it is both a trend in education and, I believe, specifically true of culinary schools. I'm sure we could make a simple factual determination, though, by looking at some educational sites and seeing how many people matriculate and graduate at the culinary schools. I'll check the CIA site. You look somewhere else.

Oh, I don't disagree with the basic tenor of your remark. I do think that it is generally true of academic institutions, and probably none the less true of cooking schools. That said, an institution with a reputation and high standard to maintain will aggressively weed out students who are not capable of meeting that standard. As you rightly state, this process starts with admissions. I don't see why this should not be the case for cooking schools. More to the point, I do not see any reason why a vocational school devoted to a particular occupation -- cooking, in this case -- should not limit the student body to people who are interested in pursuing that occupation.

[bilrus]

The difference, FG, between bricklayers and chefs is that very few bricklayers, I would think, regard their blue collar profession as a calling deserving special protection, whereas an appreciable number of chefs seem to.

So what does the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers do?

I think the biggest difference is that as a dues based organization any labor union benefits when there are more members. This is unlike chefs who appear to be a much less unified, more mercenary bunch.

Not that the individual members of the union aren't mercneary, but there isn't a dominant union for chefs (I don't the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union would qualify as being dominant outside of a few places like Las Vegas).

[Varmint]

I do not see any reason why a vocational school devoted to a particular occupation -- cooking, in this case -- should not limit the student body to people who are interested in pursuing that occupation.

But how would such a school make this determination? And when would this happen? Wouldn't the applicants lie? At what point does it become painfully obvious that the student/applicant has no desire whatsoever to pursue a career in that trade?

I knew after 2 years of graduate school that I didn't want to spend my live developing a humpback over a lab bench, but they let me stay in the program anyhow, and finally let me get my Ph.D. And they were even paying me to attend and get credits. I'm glad they didn't kick me out.

I just wonder how this determination of students' ultimate goals would be made.

[Steve Klc]

We also shouldn't be getting hung up on the cooking school as college, as University, as academic institution. Please, just stop there. Some of us who know something about the short-term expensive intensive career-changing cooking schools knows this statement is folly:

"That said, an institution with a reputation and high standard to maintain will aggressively weed out students who are not capable of meeting that standard. As you rightly state, this process starts with admissions. I don't see why this should not be the case for cooking schools."

The cooking schools that actually ARE colleges do operate a little differently--but then that's not what we're talking about on this thread in the main. We're not talking about 4 year cooking schools--that a teenager attends in lieu of going to a real rather than a culinary-based college. We're also not really talking about a formal culinary or hospitality management degree program within a college like NYC Technical College because many of these programs actually are closer to the vocational programs Lesley is talking about.

(I think) we're talking most about--and what Lesley has reserved the most derision for-- short term intensive schools with very high tuition who advertise on the Food Network and in glossy cooking magazines that they'll get you out the door working as a chef in no time.

Some of us are saying nothing more than the notions of reputation and high standards as they pertain to these cooking schools should be re-examined a little more closely. If I were considering cooking school again--especially one of these $25,000 a year short-term intensive career changing programs that smart college educated amateur cooks with the bug consider all the time--I wouldn't talk to the current chipper students when I visited a school. I'd ask the school for the list of the 1998 class and if and where they're working now. Then I'd call each and every one of them and find out 1) what they're doing, 2) how much they are making at the moment and 3) whether they think the education and the tuition they spent was worth it--whether they'd enroll again if they could do it all over again.

That would be an example of the realism the cooking schools should be presenting to prospective students.