Life Goal changing all of a sudden

When I was 11-years-old I came to Seattle for the first time for a bonemarrow transplant. It was in 1998 that I decided I wanted to come to Seattle for college, and to stay for the rest of my life.

Well, I moved to Seattle about a year and  half ago in order to establish residency and attend the University of Washington. I had planned on applying, and hopefully attending, Spring 2010. I want to be a History major and teach World History in high school.

However, another thing I've loved all of my life is baking. I've been relying on baking more and more lately in order to bolster myself out of bad moods, and have discovered that it brings me a great deal of joy not only to create delicious baked goods, but to have so many people continually ask me to bring them things I've made.

I'm thinking I may want to go to Culinary School. I'm having a difficult time just "all of a sudden" deciding that what I wanted to do most of my life, I no longer want to do.

Has anyone here been to Culinary School for a Pastry Arts degree? What kind of jobs do you have? Do you know anything about Seattle schools?

DO it! I'm not even kidding. I love baking, and I bake all the freakn time. It's the only thing that makes me happy. Martha Stewart is a GOD when it comes to cookies. I'm hooked to allrecipes.com to find the best cookies and cakes, cupcakes. I make my own caramels, marshmallows, nougat, brittles. I sit at my crappy desk job all day just dreaming up food, what I can make. So seriously, don't get stuck doing something that doesn't make you beam inside when you think about it.

If you love the art of food, you might not make a ton of money in it at first, and it's rough out there, but you can succeed in it once the economy lifts up. Open your own bakery (I so so so badly want to open a cupcake shop in the mall), learn how to decorate fancy wedding cakes, work at a bread company. On the side maybe go to a community college to get some business background and find an investor. There's so much, really. But without the degree, it's not something you can just 'jump' into.

Today the movie Julie and Julia comes out. Go see it. You'll crack up. I watched the premier last night. Hopefully you make the right choice.

I am going to sound boring here but I recommend getting the history degree anyway, and baking on the side (sounds like a great source for a job while in school, for instance). That way if you feel differently again in a few years, or at some point in your life decide that you need the flexibility that a larger income offers, you can return to your original goal of being a teacher (though I think you'll also need a teaching degree as well as your b.a., but at least you'll already be one b.a. closer).

I am not knocking baking, I have great respect for people who cook/bake well and lord knows your presence will enrich the world whether you are making yummy baked goods or teaching history to teens. Just keep in mind that it actually is very difficult to launch any kind of food service business, you need a LOT of capital and the failure rate is quite high - most people are not able to be gainfully self-employed in this way. Meaning that if you want to be a professional baker it will likely be for someone else, i.e. an existing bakery, so we are talking fairly low wages.

But in the end, you have to do what makes you happy.  For most people (in the long run at least) income is a part of what makes you happy and might make the difference between choosing a job that is 10/10 and doesn't pay well vs 9/10 (i.e. you're still pretty happy) and pays well.

Good luck!

yeah, i'm backing trust, here.  i think sometimes it's best to keep the things we really love in our personal lives, because making them our work can ruin the fun.

you can be a history teacher and still bake for the people you love.  and the people you love will never complain that it's not what they expected, too expensive, not fast enough, etc.

I dunno. I still have to go with baking. Maybe because I share that passion as well. Yea yea money makes you happy. BULL. It doesn't. Just know how many hours of your life you spend dedicated to work. 30 minute commute each way, then a full 9 hours at work. 10 hours of your day monday - friday is boring ass lame work. Being a history teacher would eat up even more of that day by grading papers. I can't see that as being fufilling if you've lost a passion for it. Do what makes you happy. I'd rather live in a shack on minimum wage than sit at a desk job boring my life away. It's not something you can just "do" on the side like everyone thinks. Not to the point where it's satisfying.

go to culinary school. you should follow your passion. if not, you'll spend your breaks in the teacher's lounge staring out the window wondering "what if", as you sip on tepid, stale coffee before you trudge back to your classroom to teach another group of kids who don't give one fig about something you used to find so interesting, until they sucked the life out of your (other) passion.

if you're not sure about teaching history, don't teach history. at least not yet. you're not in college yet, right? see if, in the meantime, you can work as an apprentice at a bakery, just to get a feel for it. and also maybe try tutoring, to flex your teaching muscles. i've tutored, and i can honestly say that the moment you see the lightbulb come on over their heads and they "get it" is the best feeling in the world.

but i still wouldn't be a teacher. that feeling wasn't enough to sustain me. i had/have creative pursuits that are more important to me. sounds like baking is more important to you. but you have time to make up your mind, and your whole life to change your mind. so in the meantime, try on both paths through part-time work, volunteering, or internships, and see which one calls to you more. 

btw, there must have been something in the air in seattle that year. '98 was the first time i visited seattle too, and i fell in love with it. even though it was june and still cold!

I attended the le Cordon bleu school in pittsburgh fo baking and pastry arts. I am currently a pastry chef at a large hotel in Washington, DC.

I was in college for a degree in Physical Therapy when I "all of the sudden" changed my mind about what I wanted to be. I still have no idea if it was the right decision for me. I don't make nearly as much money as I would being a physical therapist. And the restaurant industry is HARD WORK. I love my job, but it is literally non- stop from 4 am until whenever the work is done. Days can be anywhere from 8 hours to 16.

I encourage you to call around and ask restaurants if you can come in and work for a day and see what it's all about. We call it a stage (silent e) in the restaurant business, and it will not be paid. Home baking is a lot different than restaurant baking and it is important to know what you're getting into before deciding this huge career move. Hotel pastry is also different than restaurant pastry. We make desserts for anywhere from 5 to 1,000 people. Whereas restaurants can really focus on the fancier stuff.

That said, I really do love my job. I am never bored, and it each day is different. You can go far and make a lot of money in the business if you work hard and have some patience. I'm not sure about schools in Seattle, nor do i know what the restaurant scene is like there. Culinary school is also really expensive, so be prepared for that. I loved school though. If you go, pick your chef's brains for every little piece of advice they have to offer. And write everything down.

Feel free to PM me if you want to know anything else.  Here is a link of some of the cooler stuff I did at school. This was my last cycle at school so we did a bunch of fancy sugar work and stuff. The rest of my cycles were traditional pastry.

Original Post by x17star17x:

I dunno. I still have to go with baking. Maybe because I share that passion as well. Yea yea money makes you happy. BULL. It doesn't. Just know how many hours of your life you spend dedicated to work. 30 minute commute each way, then a full 9 hours at work. 10 hours of your day monday - friday is boring ass lame work. Being a history teacher would eat up even more of that day by grading papers. I can't see that as being fufilling if you've lost a passion for it. Do what makes you happy. I'd rather live in a shack on minimum wage than sit at a desk job boring my life away. It's not something you can just "do" on the side like everyone thinks. Not to the point where it's satisfying.

I didn't say money alone makes you happy. It just can make the difference between two paths that are both pretty good otherwise. It is definitely better to do what you love at minimum wage than to do what you hate at any salary, but the choice is not usually that stark - what if it's doing what you love for minimum wage, versus doing something you like a whole lot and that is fulfilling (though not quite as impassioned) and making a comfortable living? (Not to mention that baking can be done on the side quite easily, unlike, say, lawyering or teaching history). I have known people who have little catering companies on the side of their main job, and they love the extra income and the work, but there is simply not the customer base for it to be their full-time job. They find it satisfying, anyway...

The realistic outcome for a full-time baker is to work for an existing bakery, because most food startups (bakeries, restaurants, etc) fail, and you need a lot of startup capital to get you through not just the location setup but the first year or two as you build your customer base. Star, if you really wanna be a baker, there is nothing holding you back-  I'm pretty sure a lot of bakeries are hiring, it's kind of a recession-proof business I would think? Don't stay anywhere if you are miserable - I agree 100% with that.

Wow, Caitlin, those pictures are amazing.

Is that the kind of baking you want to do, OP? (or Star?) I admit that this is a different level than what I usually think of as baking. My brother was a baker for a number of years at an organic bakery and I was a muffin baker for a summer myself... but obviously nothing like this.

How competitive is the field, Caitlin? Do most graduates manage to find work as pastry chefs?

Thanks Trust. Those were pictures from school. I definitely don't do that stuff on an every day basis (although I wish I did :) )

The field is not terribly competitive. Most graduates can find a job IF they are willing to relocate. I went to school in Pittsburgh, which is definitely not a restaurant city, so many of my fellow classmates who stayed in the city do not have a job. I moved to DC right after I graduated and found a job fairly easily. The industry is definitely not recession proof though. Many of our kitchen staff are only getting 30 hours a week during the summer. We are mostly a business hotel and it seems business are cutting back on fancy meetings and retreats. My husband is a regular cook at two restaurants and he has no trouble getting hours. It all depends on where you work.

Baking and cake decorating are two different things. Most of the time a 'bakery' cake tastes like ass if it's decorated pretty. I have never had a cake or cookie better than I can make. My co-workers push me and tell me that I should open my own shop and quit doing the daily routine of the desk job. Well right now I'm laid off, but I don't have enough money to support a career in the field.

I can decorate a 3 tiered wedding cake with meringue flowers. I can make bonbons, fudge, home made caramel (if you've never had home made caramel you're SO missing out), taffy, peanut brittle's, marshmallow, nougat. The list goes on. It's a complete science when you get down to the candy making process. I make cupcakes, cookies, brownies, muffins. Not just standard crap, they're baked with care and patience. God I love baking :) If I don't bake for 2 days I start pacing. I spend hours digging for recipes and alter them just so. It's about passion.

This is only something I've been doing within the last year. I took cake decorating classes at Michael's Crafts. It's a lot of work. It takes a lot of patience. And your wrist starts to kill after a while. But it's all worth it. To see the smile on the face of those that get your treats, or receive your cake at their wedding. It's a true gift, a form of art.

The best pastry I ever had was from a culinary school in Seattle.  It was called Marcel's, I believe.  We were poor but it was money well spent!

That was in the early 80's so don't know if the school is still in existence.  Thanks for bringing back the memory.

Study what your heart tells you to.

(edit spelling)

Star, since you are laid off, it sounds like now is the perfect time to follow your passion - go work at a bakery!!

My gf is a chef - she went through a work-study program at a culinary school in NY. The school she went to no longer offers the work-study program but I would imagine other schools offer the same. Why not look into this option?

Like others have said, you may benefit from first doing a stage at a restaurant so you can check out what it's like to work in a professional kitchen. This experience may help clarify things for you a bit...

Good luck!

ANYTHING is a better idea than becoming a History major. Seriously, do the culinary thing.

Original Post by jackattack07:

ANYTHING is a better idea than becoming a History major. Seriously, do the culinary thing.

Spoken like... a history major? ;)

I have a friend with a B.A. in English and she has a lot to say about arts degrees too (she quotes the Avenue Q song a lot).  But the OP wants to teach highschool, not be a professional academic. That's a reasonable shot at a career, less risky than just getting a degree in something non-marketable...

@trustwomen - I couldn't afford to. My life couldn't afford it. Student loans, car payment, rent (just signed onto a new lease), electric. I will just find a job that makes around the same salary and be fine for a bit. I do enjoy baking for my co-workers tho. It comes out of my pocket, but the joy of doing it is well worth the money spent.

Original Post by trustwomen:

Original Post by jackattack07:

ANYTHING is a better idea than becoming a History major. Seriously, do the culinary thing.

Spoken like... a history major? ;)

I have a friend with a B.A. in English and she has a lot to say about arts degrees too (she quotes the Avenue Q song a lot).  But the OP wants to teach highschool, not be a professional academic. That's a reasonable shot at a career, less risky than just getting a degree in something non-marketable...

Don't I know it.  B.A. in Communications here and if I could do it over again, I would've saved myself the 40K and got a 2 year certification for welding or some crap.  Follow your joy OP and your success will come.

Just curious, but why do you feel like you need a culinary degree?  It doesn't sound like you really need to learn how to bake.

I ditto whoever said take some business classes.  Baking is a very marketable skill and there are lots of business models that will let you make some money baking without relying on it completely for your income.  Custom wedding cakes.  Catering.  Private parties.  You don't have to commit to the storefront/restaurant model to have a successful business.

In the meantime, teaching does pay your bills and it sounds like history is an interest for you as well.  So, what the heck, aim high.  Do both.

Wow I really appreciate all the responses, guys, and I really appreciate everyone's strong feelings on the subject.

I guess to clear things up, one of the reasons I'm so torn on the subject is because I grew up watching my dad in a career that he hated. At 50 years old he went back to school to pursue a career that he loved, and he's kind of my hero for that. I feel like I owe it to him, and myself, to get it right the first time.

I love that you guys think its doable to do both, because honestly that would be my dream. I'm still very much in love with history, which is why this decision was weighing on me so heavily. Pursue something I love or... pursue something I love?

Thank you guys again for all the input. I'm currently applying for an entry-level position at a bakery in my area... hopefully a little bit of hands-on experience will help me make my decision. (Hopefully I'll get the job!)

Good luck and I hope you get the job!