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Accredited Colleges, Universities & Culinary Academies |
Going to a 2-4 year college in order to become a certified chef is the best place to start if you are hoping to be accredited nationwide.
College courses offer you are more rounded view of the culinary industry and give you much of the skills that you will need in order to excel at your field.
Employers at finer restaurants are more eager to hire an accredited chef that has a college degree in the field than a graduate from a trade school. This is also a great way to know that you are accredited all over the world as well.
Trade schools may not necessarily grant you the same promise. Naturally, there are some pros and cons to choosing to get your certification from a College or University. Let's take a look at them.
Pros / Cons
2-4 year College or University:
You are accredited worldwide / It takes 2-4 years of study to get your certification
You will receive your post secondary diploma / The cost is much higher than any other method of trainingÊ
You can often start in a head position in the kitchen / It saves you little time to get your hands on experience working in a kitchen
You are eligible for a higher starting wage / You may not be eligible for an apprenticeship
You can make invaluable connections in the business / The competition is fierce for graduating with honors
You are recognized in the field as a chef once completed / Not all colleges offer chef training
You get hands on personal help / You are still required to apprentice somewhere (time consuming)
As you can see the benefits of choosing to get your training in a college or university can have it drawbacks as well as its good points.
The best reasons to choose a college is that you will be accredited worldwide which is not possible with other methods. As a college graduate in this field you are recognized in the field as a chef for a lifetime, whereas a trade school will not let you be recognized until you are hired as a chef.
Tuition can also be an issue although many colleges and universities offer financial aid if you qualify for it.
Most schools that offer you the chance to become a chef can have their tuition range anywhere from $5000 to $15,000 per year. That is quite a bit of money, but the benefits are well worth it. Here is a list of Colleges that do offer Chef training.
Le Cordon Bleu at Brown College (Minneapolis Minnesota)
Westwood College (Denver, Colorado)
Sullivan University (Kentucky)
California Culinary College
Gibbs College (New Jersey)
Kirtland Community College (Michigan)
There are many more colleges that can train you to become a chef, but you get the idea. Many culinary institutes are just as good as colleges and Universities, and in some cases better.
In addition, Le Cordon Bleu is located in many States and is nationally a recognized school.
Culinary academies are basically the same as colleges and universities. The cost is about the same, but you can get your credentials in less time at some of them.
Some culinary academies can even get you credited in as little as 9 months.Culinary Academies often let you live on campus as part of your tuition, and cover your food costs. They actually train you while you cook all of your meals. That's helpful and practical!
Trade or Vocational Schools
A trade school offers you the chance to get you accredited in a shorter time period than colleges can. You will still learn much about the culinary industry but your classes are condensed so as to suit a certain time frame.
Trade schools are becoming more and more popular among those that wish to begin a career as quickly as possible, but there are pros and cons to choosing a trade school as your means to getting your credentials. Let's take a quick look at them.
Pros / Cons
It is much cheaper than college or culinary institutes / You are only accredited in the State in which you trained
You can be certified in less time / You still must apprentice somewhere
Condensed classes leave more free time / Condensed classes neglect some necessary courses
You can work at your own pace / You can work at your own pace (you may rush yourself)
You get some hands on experience / You have to buy your own equipment separately
As you can see, trade schools can help you get your certification, but it leaves out a bit of stuff too.
All in all, trade schools are great for some people as not everyone can afford to invest the money or the time to a full time college, university or culinary academy.
On-Site Training
On-site training is basically when an employer trains you to be a chef in their establishment. The best thing about this type of training is that you generally get paid to do it.
The down side to this is that you are only trained to work for them and you are not accredited. This means that you are not a certified chef. You will not be recognized in the field as a chef either.
Another bad point to this type of training is that if you lose your job, you are back where you started.
Training on-site doesn't make you a chef, it makes you a cook. Without your chef certification, you are not eligible for a chef's wages either. As a cook, you will earn a cook's salary.
A benefit to this type of training is that you will already have a job waiting for you that could elevate you to the pay of a head chef eventually, without having to do all of the studying for it.
Just know that trying to change locations will not be a good idea unless you already have a position lined up.
Training on-site can give you plenty of hours in the culinary field if you happen to live in a state that requires a certain number of hours of experience before starting the certification process.
Online Training
These days, just about every profession on the market has courses that you can take online. Some of the courses claim to make you accredited, but be very careful and research it thoroughly before parting with any money.
Some of these courses can be as cheap as $19.99, which is an obvious bargain.
Of course you must consider that the courses can't really be of any use. You simply can't use an online course manual to learn how to be a chef. You don't get the obvious benefits of hands on learning, and there is no one available to help you if you have any problems.
You don't really have a way to know if you're even preparing meals properly, or I they've turned out right. You might have better luck just reading a cookbook for your qualifications.
Online courses just don't cut the mustard insofar as teaching you to become a real chef. Without a real teacher there to help you along the way, you will not learn anything that you can really use in the work force.
All an online course can do is to give you the basics. It can't really help you get your credentials and certainly not the kind of credentials that will be nationally accredited.
All in all, this is a case where you will get exactly what you pay for so let the buyer beware.
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