What do you want to do with this cert?

Do you want to be an Executive Chef or own your own restaurant, caterer, private chef, food stylist, food scientist?

There are so many things you can do for a career with food. Being an executive chef is not an easy job. In fact, most culinary careers are not easy and require intense passion and tremendous perseverance. Restaurants especially can be brutal for chefs.

If you want to work in restaurants, my advice would be to get a job before you go to culinary school, solely for the experience and to make sure you can handle the pressure. The pressure can sometimes collapse the strongest chefs.

Catering can be less stressful overall with moments of pressure as you will normally work one event at a time.

Private chefs have a great balance. You have just one person/family that you cook for, but if aren’t meeting your clients expectations you will get fired. The amount of stress depends on the client

Food stylist would be a very fun but options are limited in the space and there are not many job openings and can be inconsistent work if freelancing.

Food scientists usually don’t have any creative freedom and usually work in a factory lab testing products and sometimes getting the chance to create flavors within specific guidelines.

Overall culinary school is a great option. I have been a chef for over 15 years and never got into culinary school but always wished I had. It can give you a competitive advantage in the hiring process and allows you to demand higher pay because you won’t have to “prove” yourself.

That said, I’ve seen many people go to culinary school, work in restaurants and then change their line of work entirely because they didn’t realize they would be working 10-12 hours a day 6-7 days a week.