I'll be going to the California Culinary Academy

6 July, 2006 - 11:48pm — Patch

that's right. I could be there as soon as August 14. So sweet.

Not much else to say.

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7 July, 2006 - 12:42am — Hyacinthus

YAY

Congratulations!!

"Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs,
Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes."
- The Iliad (bk. XX, l. 315), (Bryant's translation)

7 July, 2006 - 4:24am — shinedownkicksyouras

wow that is uber cool..have f

wow that is uber cool..have fun

Don't feel the need to define me...I can define myslef

11 July, 2006 - 7:43pm — raining men

Hey

Hey that sounds cool. Enjoy kiddo

"Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suf-fer-ing"

21 July, 2006 - 2:26am — unknown1@drupal.org

Hmmm, have you checked out other schools before signing up for the Academy? I was in your same position like somewhere in May... Toured the campus, registered, etc. There were somethings I didn't like, though. It was the fact the guy who was showing me around the school was sort of rushing me to attend class as soon as possible, even though I had no means of transportation at the time. There was also the $60 non-refundable fee for registration. The major turn off was that the baking and pastry course I was signing up for was located on the other side of the campus.

Anyway, I was online talking to my friends how I was going to attend the Academy. He laughed at me and then told me how is best friend, gruaduating from CCA, was not happy attending the school. He said the time, money, and their methods of teaching was not worth it and strongly recommended me to look around. He then sent me this link:

http://www.pcichef.com/

It was a new school that opened a year ago and it was located in Campbell (I lived in San Jose so it was much easier to commute). I then called them up for a tour and checked it out... My registration representative was actually less in a rush in signing me up and more into what I was actually interested in.

What interested me was the smaller classroom sizes. In CCA, they stick in a class of 20+ students. In Professional Culinary Institute, they only allow 14 students max per class. The school itself is located on the third floor of a building and all the classes are literally next to each other, so I can actually not have to worry traveling long distances just to get to my classes. For the registration fee, it was $70 but $50 refundable.

Also, the school only cost $21000 for Culinary or Baking. The school gave me a very good impression so I signed to start in July 10. I of course called CCA and pulled out my registration. Unfortunately, my non-refundable $60 went down the drain but oh well... They asked me while I changed my mine and I told they I was going to PCI. They then told me I knew that wasn't an accredited school. I just said I know and asked for my registration to be pulled out.

You see, to be an accredited school, the school has to be around at least 2 years. The school only been around for 1 year but what makes it interesting is that a school thats only been around for a year wins the 2006 American Culinary Federation National Hot Food Championship title:

http://www.pcichef.com/news.html

This actually happened during the first day I started class. It's my second week in my baking course and I love it. Today, I asked my instructor, Bo Friberg (http://www.chefbo.com/) why did he move from CCA to PCI? He said he didn't like the teaching methods of the school, where they just make students prep dishes in bunches all day.
In PCI, you can actually get help from the instructor anytime during class to help improve your skills. My class is only consist of 8 students (Sweet!).

Man, I typed out a lot of stuff. But yeah, check out the Professional Culinary Institute before you attend CCA. We both have a love of food and I'm just watching for you =P. Good Luck!

25 July, 2006 - 11:31pm — Patch

ummm, I can obviously tell yo

ummm, I can obviously tell you're just another college rep trying to steal me away from CCA. Just to let you know, in the last issue of Food and Wine monthly, two of the top ten best new chefs were from CCA. I didn't see that college you're talking about anywhere. anywhere in the magazine. Plus, is your college Cordon Bleu? Mine is. Does your college do general culinary arts as well as baking? Does it have a restaurant management course? Minde does.

ANd my experiences was totally different from yours. My rep on the tour was always asking me questions to see if I wanted more informatio about anything, but him and everyone else there was so informative that I didn't need to.

Plus, my school is located in DOWNTOWN SAN FRANCISCO. Do I have to go on about how great a location that is?

So thanks but no thanks.
I like my college just fine.

"What is the purpose of life? It is to live it."

27 July, 2006 - 4:28am — unknown1@drupal.org

Oh cool, you responded to my

Oh cool, you responded to my comment. Wow, you think I'm a college rep? I guess taking English 1C in Evergreen Valley Community College really paid off XD.
BTW, here's my myspace account to answer a few suspicions:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendi...

As you can tell, I do not update often so I'm not a myspace Junky =P. I've been in EVC for the last 4 years and I realized I hate almost all forms of Science for a career (Biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) The only thing I enjoyed was making food for the others at the Student Government Office (joined it at my last year at EVC because I wanted to see how the political was like). After dropping all my classes after the final semester, I decided to check out CCA because cooking or baking was the only thing I really enjoyed.

The other reason I didn't want to go to CCA was because it was going to be a pain commuting there from San Jose for my 7 AM class.
In your case, if you're moving to San Francisco from New York then by all means go for it. As long as you can support yourself financially (at your age, I hope your parent are backing you up as well). Living in San Francisco should be much more interesting than living in San Jose or Campbell. Yes, San Jose might be one of the safest cities but it is also one of the dullest O_O.

To answer a few of your questions, yes my school has both Culinary Arts and Baking for the same cost. For how much experience our chefs have, here's their bio page:

http://www.pcichef.com/staff_bios.html

I'm currently taking Baking and Pastry with Chef Bo Friberg. All I can say is that he is awesome and I actually look forward going to school everyday. The California Culinary Academy has been around for 25 years so of course they receive recognition. The Professional Culinary Institute has only been around for a year and yet they won the ACF (American Culinary Federation) Student Team Championship;
Go Underdogs! =D

But hey dude, good luck with the California Culinary Academy. The only reason I gave you info about my school is because not many people, including myself, do not know of the alternative to California Culinary Academy. And all the bad stuff I heard about CCA are from some of the former students of the school:

http://www.cheftalk.com/forums/search.php?searchid=297747

and one of my friends. Their argument seems to be that the quality of CCA has diminished over the past few years and instead became just a large corportation in it for the money, not entirely for the students.
Many chefs noticed this and moved over to PCI to teach mainly for the students. Oh here's a link so you can check out which chefs are good in your school:

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/SelectTeacher.jsp?sid=1788

As I mentioned, the maximum capacity of all classes here is 14 but I'm
even happier with my class with 7 other students XD (more time with the chef, SCORE!)

Probably during or in the future, we can share our experiences in the schools we are in and hope for the best in both our futures. Good luck dude and you better not flake out in your classes =P.