re: My son wants to go to culinary school. Where should he go?

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I'm going to suggest a whole different angle on this. Ever thought of the military? T

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I started to say this too.

Military cooking is a very technical business with a strict deadline for everything they do. Military Hospital cooking is a big deal and only their best people get there.

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He is in College Station now

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What? You want Big City? WTF do you think "The George," is? There is so much money in College Station it's stupid, and he can't find a way to prep green beans? Has he run fries at *bullshite chicken joint that is not Cane's?"

CIA has been well known for taking a shite ton of money to "train" people to not earn much. Yet, central Americans somehow show up and julienne potatoes if yelled at the right way.

He's trying to get laid at your expense.

Look OP, I wasn’t far from your son somewhat lost in college. It sounds like he didn’t get into TAMU or UT and he refused to go somewhere else, so he could go with his friends and go the juco route to hang with friends and he is taking boring classes at community college and not doing well. It happens to a lot of people.

Paying for school here is really not a good solution imo. He needs to do something like the military or get field work until he finds his way. Construction, work in a kitchen, etc. Or transfer somewhere that’s not Juco where he can get his hands dirty doing something he enjoys.

A lot of young men have to find the path they want to find the motivation to put in the class work to get there. School is a very far cry from actually working in a kitchen or owning your own small business based on food. Food service and hospitality is very very long work and very long hours at the shittiest times of the day, usually very early morning or evening.

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f he wants to go the experience route, I would pull that 529 money and send him to a country with an interesting food scene to learn, then come back and open a food truck serving that cuisine. Less pressure than a restaurant kitchen and he could work for himself much earlier in life.

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This is actually great advice whether he wants to work/own a restaurant or whether he wants to do a food truck. Getting out there and going to Italy, to France, England, etc. is a great way for him to grow as a person and as a chef if he truly wants to make a career out of it.

If he goes into it humble, willing to learn and willing to take a lot of shite (that's not personal even if it feels like it) then he'll get plenty of experience that should make him successful. He'll have some rough years of shite pay, having no life, but if it is what he's passionate about it, then don't half arse it. He'll thank you later for it

Let me preface this by saying that the only kitchen I worked in was at Little Ceaser's in high school. That being said, I have multiple friends who went to culinary school and worked in kitchens at various points in their lives. I also am a "good cook" and spend a lot of time in my own kitchen and am pretty immersed in the food/beverage/hospitality scene.

1) You and he should both read Kitchen Confidential. While Bourdain was a cynical bastard, he also paints an appropriately bleak picture of the education, progression, and career of a chef.

2) He needs to work in a legit kitchen, even as just a dishwasher. Somewhere with brutal hours, brutal services, and brutal environments. If he loves it, then continue on. But not actually experiencing kitchen life prior to enrolling in culinary school is like someone enrolling in med school without knowing whether they can stomach the sight of blood.

3) Every chef I know who went to culinary school no longer cooks professionally. The one who lasted the longest went to work for Chartwells on the UofA campus doing event catering. Even he eventually tapped out. It's a brutal life, especially if you want to have a family.

4) All that being said, if he really wants to be a chef... that's awesome. Despite all I said above, a part of me wishes I'd have pursued it. I do think that spending the money staging instead of on a full blown culinary school might be a better use of funds. Or maybe not... there are others on here who probably have a better idea of the current value of a formal education in the kitchen scene.

Stage (pronounced 'st???/ STAH-zh) It's like a tryout for kitchens. Can last as little a week or as long as a year.

It's unpaid work on the premise that you will earn a paid position. The longest i ever staged was for two weeks. I was offered a paid position upon my competencies.

Stages are more prevalent in France but, many restaurants in the US, such as French Laundry, have waiting lists for stagiaires.

A stage at the FL will pick herbs and peel vegetables for months before they ever get a chance to do anything meaningful in the kitchen.

Nichols

Had a friend go through CIA in NY, then went and received a Masters from UH in Hospitality/Restaurant Management

I know I mentioned Robert St. John's Hattiesburg, MS operations before, I also know your son is in Austin and seems uninterested in leaving that town. I can understand why. It is a big party place to live and have fun.

Here is the website for Loblolly Bakery. If he could get a Job there, he could learn tons of stuff and get great experience. If he really was interested in pursuing a career, he could also get a degree in Hospitality from University of Southern, MS. If he plans on having any success in the food industry, he needs to get his head straight on the business side so he can learn that elusive skill of making a profit in the food business. I would still recommend he try to arrange for a talk with Robert. Might be the best hour he ever invested in what seems like a young man's daydream at the moment.

Here is the website

The website even has a screen for him to apply for employment, which means they probably would interview him and share some of the facts he needs to hear before he invests too much time daydreaming.