[STUDENT] What I love most about cooking
is how food transforms when you cook it.
To me, food is like an icebreaker.
It’s like a great way to learn about people,
learn about what they like and don’t like,
and it’s just a great way to
bring a lot of people together.
[INSTRUCTOR] This industry is a very personal industry,
and so we love to interact and communicate.
Part of food is that family atmosphere.
And so, relationships you build with food,
they’re priceless.
[STUDENT] They really give you real experience,
and I think some schools lack that.
To be able to experience what it's like
working in a restaurant.
You start right away.
You start making stuff for restaurant.
You start practicing.
Like, the first week you have a whole restaurant run.
They just throw you in and then
you have to figure it out.
[INSTRUCTOR] They not only learn the techniques from a book and
through videos or lecture.
They do the hands-on,
from the back of house to the front of house.
One aspect of the program that we have,
that most other colleges don’t,
is we have a specific certificate
just for restaurant management.
The industry is wide open, and so
opportunities are endless.
[STUDENT] When I graduated high school in 2011,
I actually wanted to come here.
But then I got pregnant with my daughter,
so I wasn't able to.
I just wanted to make sure that
it was an appropriate time for my daughter.
I knew
no matter when I was going to go back to school,
I was going to come here.
And then now that she’s older, she just turned five,
she like, loves it.
She just wants to come in all the time
and see the kitchen.
The instructors are really helpful,
and they really work with you
to ensure that you can get your education
and still be a mom, basically.
[INSTRUCTOR] We use a peer mentoring-type system.
And so we try and maintain that environment where
the students who have been here for nine months
are teaching and training the newer students to
organize and keep the kitchen under control.
[STUDENT] It’s a great experience
because you have people from all different aspects of life
working in one kitchen.
We all have a passion or a love for cooking.
And, no matter where we came from,
we all have that in common.
[INSTRUCTOR] The career doors this opens up for students
in the hospitality industry is fantastic.
In fact, most of them have jobs before they leave the program.
[STUDENT] I was nervous. I was like, “What if I don’t like cooking?"
"What if it’s not what I expected?"
Then I was like,
"I’m never going to know if I don’t try."
So, I just did it.
That’s the only advice I can say, is just do it.
You’ll never know until you try.
