The Online Culinary Schools and Its Pros and Cons

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Online schools are becoming quite a trend right now. Not one to be left behind, online culinary schools have popped up all over the Internet. There may be a lot of advantages an online culinary school can offer, but the question is, is it enough to give you what you want for your culinary career?

Let us explore what these online culinary schools are, how they work, the job opportunities after completing the online course, and their pros and cons.

What are Online Culinary Schools?

In a nutshell, these are simply culinary programs and lessons being offered online. This gives you a more flexible schedule, and you can easily set up your own pace when it comes to learning and studying your lessons. For busy individuals, online culinary schools seem to be the perfect solution.

What you will usually need is simply a computer and a reliable Internet connection. The online culinary school will also provide you with software that you can use in your studies. The lessons taught here are usually about casual cooking training and lessons, and you will also be given certificates, diplomas, and even degrees after you have graduated.

What Are The Job Opportunities?

Of course, the main reason why you studied at an online culinary school is to learn how to cook. But then again, there are some people who wish to find a job after completing their online courses. Then question then is what the job opportunities available are for those who studied at online culinary schools?

There seems to be no issue in this regard as the job opportunity seems to be the same. In fact, there are hotels and restaurants that encourage their chefs to enroll at online culinary classes to further their knowledge. After all, the lessons given online are relatively the same as those given in land-based culinary schools.

However, it should also be noted that there are still a high number of restaurants and hotels that would rather hire chefs that had hands-on training at land-based culinary schools.

What Are The Pros And Cons Of Online Culinary Schools?

Although it is so easy to enroll at an online culinary school, get your diploma or certificate, and look for a job after, you still have to know the pros and cons to be able to make the right decision.

Pros:

It cannot be denied that the tuition cost of online culinary schools is way cheaper than those of land-based culinary schools. This is because of the relatively cheaper overhead costs needed to maintain the online classes.
This is perfect for those with a very busy schedule like students, employees, or stay-at-home moms as they can simply choose an online class schedule perfect for their busy day-to-day lives.
No need to travel to the location just to study cooking. This saves the culinary students time, money, and effort.
The lessons are relatively the same, and you can set your own pace studying them.
This allows people with associate’s degree to finally complete their bachelor’s degree through online culinary schools.
This is also perfect for those individuals who simply want to learn how to cook.
Lastly, you can learn and study how to cook in the privacy of your own kitchen.

Cons:

If you are after professional level courses, sadly, online culinary schools cannot offer you this.
This will not give you the hands-on training and more extensive culinary education you need to become a professional chef.
There are still a lot of restaurants and hotels that would rather hire those individuals who graduated from land-based culinary schools than online culinary schools.
You will need to have more self-discipline and determination because you are studding your online lessons in the comforts of your comfort zone.
There are so many scams out there that you can easily fall into one, especially if you do not do your research when it comes to the accredited and trustworthy online culinary schools.

These are just some of the pros and cons of online culinary schools, so if you are thinking of enrolling at one, then it would do you a lot of good to consider all benefits and drawbacks of it.

Image Credit: bestculinaryschoolsguide.com

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Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Filed under Chef Chef, ProChef360- General · Tagged with Chefs, culinary career, online culinary schools, online schools

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3 Responses to “The Online Culinary Schools and Its Pros and Cons”

Mike Erickson says:

January 12, 2011 at 11:04 pm

Online culinary schools can work very well in coordination with an apprenticeship and or entry level training. Many restaurants and chefs would rather training you themselves anyway and have you work your way up the ladder. I think the repetition on the job is better than just doing things in culinary school one time and sometime even with a partner tag teaming a chicken or another technique or recipe. The MAJOR Concern most people should look at is the cost.

I am the type or student that is commited and going to be able to make the $40,000+ investment back in the long run or am I better off just doing my training on the job where some many successful chefs have paid there dues and supplment with a more inexpensive program online to get an introuduction to the basics and theory and history of our industry.

The Culinary Institute of American uses videos for 50% of there classes to reinforce concepts and lecture for those that are hands on visually orientated learners which a lot of chefs and creative types are. I learned a lot from Julia Child and Jaque Pepin watching television.

Check out Rouxbe.com – great site and more are coming. I own the WorldCulinaryInstitute.com domain and thought about doing this 15 years ago when Apple first came out with the mac adds featuring Chefs and cooking demos. My opinion, it works for some and makes RIO sense on the pocket book in a lot of ways. Our industry is still performance, work ethic, and attitude – no one really cares where you went to school……….. just can you cook and demonstrate knowledge. Thats why my tagline was and is – “Cooking Up Knowledge!”

Culinary Regards,

Mike

[Reply]
Chef Matthew J.G Reply:
January 13th, 2011 at 9:02 am
Greetings Mike,

Thanks for your constructive input into this issue.

http://www.rouxbe.com is great. I stumbled across that site a while back.

Best regards,

Matthew

[Reply]

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