Pastry School

[tippingvelvet]

Does anyone know of any place in the NYC/NJ area I could go to pastry school part-time. I have a full-time (9-5) job that I need to keep, but I would really like to pursue this and possibly change careers in the future.

[nightscotsman]

The French Culinary Institute Does offer evening and weekend classes. You can see their schedule here.

However, I don't recommend training for a career change this way. Being in the kitchen, even as a student, is a lot of work and you will end up getting very little sleep and having not much energy for either you current job or for class. Also, from what I've heard the FCI has a good program, but it's VERY expensive - currently $30,0000 to $32,500. Instead, you might look into getting a part-time job at a bakery, pastry shop or restaurant to get some experience and find out if you want to make a serious go of changing careers.

[Wendy DeBord]

I ditto Neils advice about working in a shop first before you spend alot of money on schooling.

Yes, it's nice to work at a job you love but do you understand the pay scale and exactly what the work is like? I'd be practically homeless, living from one check to the next if it wasn't for my spouses income. It's low pay and long hours.......... and nothing can prepare you for how hard it is to mantain a relationship in when you work these kind of hours. So make sure your able to make all the long term sacrifices before you give up a job that has decent pay and life style.

Test the waters by working in the business before you make permenent sacrifices. School is not a realistic example of what daily life is like in the profession.

I know this post sounds very negative......but it's better to know the truth going in, in my opinion. Sometimes depending upon the person (which I don't know you at all)......but sometimes it's best to keep you hobby your hobby and not spoil the pleasure it gives you by doing it as a profession.

[Suzanne F]

The Art Institute of New York (formerly New York Restaurant School) also has a pastry program. When I was at NYRS there were day and evening pastry classes, all professional level only. Not sure what the program might cost now, but I would guess it's less than FCI. Edited April 17, 2004 by Suzanne F (log)

[tan319]

I've got to agree with Neil and Wendy, since you're in NYC, there's so many places you might be able to get your feet wet in and you can see if it might agree with you.

It's hard work, low pay and you really have to eat sleep and drink food to be into this lifestyle,IMHO.

Good luck!

[nightscotsman]

I should really qualify my suggestion by saying I didn't actually take my own advice when I decided to change careers. I did a lot of research and talked to many people (some of whom also told me I should do some trials or stages first), so I thought I had a fairly good idea of what I was getting into. However, the major difference was I had been saving money for years and had enough set aside to both pay for school and live for over a year with no income.

Now that I'm actually out there doing the job, I've learned that some things I anticipated correctly and some where harder than I expected, but almost nothing was a complete surprise. It helped that the school I went to taught me how to do things very similarly to the way we work at the Bellagio. It IS very hard work, and getting up to speed has been stressful, but now that I'm starting to get settled in the kitchen and know what is expected of me, I'm actually enjoying it. Of course my hours completely suck, my back hurts (working on that), I have no social life, and I'm not going to be rich any time soon, but I have a strong feeling of satisfaction at the end of the day and I'm proud of the product we put out to our guests, which is way more than I can say for my last job.

[tan319]

That lack of social life was the hardest thing for me to get used to when I changed up.

The hours were completely different to everyone else's.

When I was getting off work, everyone was more then halfway thru their night out, etc.

The sense of satisfaction is what made it worthwhile.

BTW, if I was going to do an exclusively pastry course, I would only consider FPS, I don't think one could go wrong there!