— Terrell Clarke

The elements, you know, to becoming a chef and it's, you know, I think that the word chef is kind of thrown around a lot lately. Uh, you know, everybody calls me chef. Um, I was actually, I never went to a culinary school. I, you know, worked in kitchens basically to be able to learn a lot of what I did outside of, you know, learning at home as well. But to, you know, rising in the industry, I think the best thing you can do is to get into a kitchen, right? To get into a commercial kitchen. Um, the bigger, the better, the more well known and probably the better. Um, you know, because you, if you know, uh, a restaurant is a good quality restaurant and they have high standards, then your learning is probably going to be around the same thing too. So I tell students this all the time, like, if you're looking to increase your education beyond what you're doing at Rouxbe, probably the best thing for you to do is to get a job at a restaurant as well. Um, you know, after you graduate while you're, you know, in the middle of Rouxbe courses as well, because your hands-on experience is going to teach you more than you can fathom. And you're gonna learn a lot from your peers. You're gonna learn techniques, you'll be criticized, um, by your peers as well to be able to say, Nope, you're not doing that right. Here's the way you should do it. Um, and keep an open mind while you're doing it. The more that you learn, you'll find yourself teaching other people that are coming in as well, which really helps you get even better at your craft. So I think that's really the best thing I can give you as advice is to, uh, go into a restaurant work, um, around a a lot of different people, continue that process to be able to, to keep learning. Um, and that's probably the best thing you can do, um, you know, as a, as a as four year career.