I still have the GM discount card in my back pocket...definitely gonna try to use it next trip if the offer still stands
To be fair no one wants to have to go through what 17a and koz had to go through to get those discounts:smile:
Believe me, if I take the family out there in a couple of years, I'll be hitting you up. All of our traveling this summer is West Coast and Hawaii, though.
all depends on if you can touch your toes..... and if you have long arms like Koz, well lets just remember a little trip on a Nemo ride was discussed on here.....
My son is trying to get a culinary internship there for the summer so if he gets it I will be heading over a few times I am sure. Do you know anything about the internships there? Anything he should make sure he includes in his portfolio? Appreciate any thing you might be able to tell me that may help.
Well the plan right now is Culinary school after HS and he still has his senior year but I am sure the internship is a great foot in the door. The culinary schools are only about $2000 a year less than Harvard so if he could get in Disney right out of HS I don't know that I would complain.
considering the value of culinary school is about $2,000,000 less than an education at Harvard, you'd be remiss if you didn't complain about culinary school.
Is there really any basis for the $2,000,000 figure? Or just some arbitrary figure you decided to throw out? Is everyone coming out of Harvard guaranteed $130-140K a year? My comment about not complaining was meant to mean if he was able to jump into a good paying job with a good company out of HS rather than having to go to culinary school first that would be great.
there may be a slight exaggeration on my part, but what isn't an exaggeration is the fact that out of culinary school he will be working for minimum wage, or extremely close to it. that's not my ideal of a good job. there is no shortage of competition for kitchen jobs. he won't be a chef, sous chef or even grill man out of culinary school. he'll be working salads with illegals and working his way up from there. I'd recommend he work in a kitchen before spending the money on culinary school. but that's just my opinion. I worked in a high end restaurant for 9 years as a server and manager, my wife was a pastry chef before getting the hell out of the restaurant industry to work in a more lucrative industry. I feel bad every time I see those kids coming out of culinary school thinking they are going to be chefs and make decent money and realize they are now in debt trying to pay it off on minimum wage and long hours.
Well there may also be some confusion on what type of culinary school we are talking about. If you are talking about some kid going to get a certificate from a technical school and then coming out earning minimum wage maybe but most executive chef positions are now expected to have a 4 year degree from an accredited school. Of course he doesn't think he will be coming out making $100K a year and realizes he will have to work his way up but I have talked to many people I know in the industry as I had worked with restaurants for many years before getting into real estate and know many restaurant and hotel managers and I have a cousin who works with one of the large high end chain hotels and what I am being told is that if someone wants to get anywhere they need to have the proper schooling to get anywhere these days as a chef. I don't know how long you have been out of the industry, things may have changed since then. He of course is pursuing many different scholarships and grants which will likely cover most of the tuition and this is not just a spur of the moment thing. It has been his goal since before he started HS which says a lot to me since I got out of HS and still didn't know what I wanted to do. I do appreciate your thoughts on the subject though.
yes, they need the culinary training, but it is a long road from culinary school to well paid job in the industry, and the culinary school training itself only qualifies you for a bottom tier job at entry. unfortunately, there is no shortage of culinary school graduates or bodies to work in a kitchen, so competition is stiff and jobs scarce. he'll be lucky to get a salaried job out of school, and even luckier if it pays him more than $35,0000 a year. the $100,000 jobs are so few and far between they shouldn't even be on the radar without a good ten years of high quality experience. culinary school's sell a bill of goods that just isn't true, it doesn't matter if it is the CIA or the fake licensed Le Cordon Bleu Institutes, and too many kids find out the hard way after they've plunked down the investment. yes, you need the training, but it doesn't qualify you for anything more than bottom of the barrel and doesn't make you more in demand than the thousands of other people who already have it and experience. my wife went to culinary school in London, then worked at the Dorchester and the Savoy in London before returning to the states. combined that gave her an advantage against others in the industry, but I assure you she was working for peanuts at both hotels and in the U.S. compared to the starting salary for any new college graduate with better than a teaching degree, and her earning potential was extremely limited compared to what it is now that she is out of the restaurant industry. my only point, though, was not to dissuade you, but to let you know that if the choice is between culinary school or paying an extra $2,000 for Harvard, don't skimp and send him to Harvard. long term he will be happier for it, unless he really wants the long days and little pay lifestyle of the kitchen restaurant industry.
