08-17-2011, 07:50 PM
So I know this is totally off topic, but since you are all my "family" I thought I'd do a little update. Some of you may already know, that my husband and I are starting a business.
This process started in January, when I had an epiphany. I was about a year into my culinary burnout (18 years teaching for the program I used to run, and just SO over it all), so I was here, taking random science classes, fooling around with career changes, changing my career changes, dropped out of 7 graduate programs in 14 months (is that a record? hilarious ) and found my way onto one of those What Color is Your Parachute type sites. My dilemma was that I loved my field, I love cooking/cheffing, I love teaching culinary, and and I used to have my dream job. I just hated THIS job. THIS job, however, was the only one of it's kind in town, and there isn't any justification to move...so when it asked something like "what would you do with your life if you won the lottery" I answered "I'd start my own damn culinary school." In that split second, I wondered if I could do it without winning the lottery? :confused: Well, I'm going to give it a shot!
I won't droll on and on, but I've been working on my concept and doing research since about the minute it hit me. I traveled to other privately owned culinary schools in other parts of the United States, met the owners and found wonderful mentors. I've been building the curriculum and concept at a good pace for the past few months. I'm nearly done. I'm going to visit my local SCORE office and get some feedback / guidance on a few parts I don't understand, and go from there. If all goes well, I should have funding by this time next month! Is that crazy or what????
Despite owning the domain, we don't yet have a website - I was going to give the name, but I'll wait until we get our site. I have a million plates spinning in the air, and I don't think this is even the start of it all!
In a nutshell, we'll have a 6 month culinary diploma program for enrolled students and recreational courses on weekends. I hope to get my courses ACE evaluated so students can get college credit, and I hope to get national accreditation so they can get student loans/pell grants-----that's a big expensive deal and we have to be open for 2 years before we can even apply, but that's a goal. At some point, I'm going to incorporate theory-based distance learning options, likely continuing education for professional certification, but that's wayyy wayyyy off too. I'm just trying to figure out which way is up at this point.
So, if you tolerated my raving, thank you. I seriously have had to keep this completely confidential (it's a small world) and I needed to tell someone!! I am sooo excited, nervous, self-doubting, self-confident....you get the idea. When the time comes that we launch our site, I'll post it here (with permission) for y'all to check out
This process started in January, when I had an epiphany. I was about a year into my culinary burnout (18 years teaching for the program I used to run, and just SO over it all), so I was here, taking random science classes, fooling around with career changes, changing my career changes, dropped out of 7 graduate programs in 14 months (is that a record? hilarious ) and found my way onto one of those What Color is Your Parachute type sites. My dilemma was that I loved my field, I love cooking/cheffing, I love teaching culinary, and and I used to have my dream job. I just hated THIS job. THIS job, however, was the only one of it's kind in town, and there isn't any justification to move...so when it asked something like "what would you do with your life if you won the lottery" I answered "I'd start my own damn culinary school." In that split second, I wondered if I could do it without winning the lottery? :confused: Well, I'm going to give it a shot!
I won't droll on and on, but I've been working on my concept and doing research since about the minute it hit me. I traveled to other privately owned culinary schools in other parts of the United States, met the owners and found wonderful mentors. I've been building the curriculum and concept at a good pace for the past few months. I'm nearly done. I'm going to visit my local SCORE office and get some feedback / guidance on a few parts I don't understand, and go from there. If all goes well, I should have funding by this time next month! Is that crazy or what????
Despite owning the domain, we don't yet have a website - I was going to give the name, but I'll wait until we get our site. I have a million plates spinning in the air, and I don't think this is even the start of it all!
In a nutshell, we'll have a 6 month culinary diploma program for enrolled students and recreational courses on weekends. I hope to get my courses ACE evaluated so students can get college credit, and I hope to get national accreditation so they can get student loans/pell grants-----that's a big expensive deal and we have to be open for 2 years before we can even apply, but that's a goal. At some point, I'm going to incorporate theory-based distance learning options, likely continuing education for professional certification, but that's wayyy wayyyy off too. I'm just trying to figure out which way is up at this point.
So, if you tolerated my raving, thank you. I seriously have had to keep this completely confidential (it's a small world) and I needed to tell someone!! I am sooo excited, nervous, self-doubting, self-confident....you get the idea. When the time comes that we launch our site, I'll post it here (with permission) for y'all to check out
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