Is Le Cordon Bleu hard to study? A brief introduction to life at Le Cordon Bleu in Australia
Whenever people talk about Le Cordon Bleu, they will be fascinated by it. I am no exception. Before I entered the school, I was full of expectations and fantasies about everything. I felt very excited to set foot in this famous place.
However, ideals are ideals. To enroll in a course I have never been to before, rationally I told myself that it would be best to do some research first, so that I could at least have an idea of what kind of challenges I would be facing. The most direct way to do this was to look online at the experiences of different people who had studied Le Cordon Bleu. After some research, I finally had an idea of what this course was about and what the challenges were.
What exactly do you learn at Le Cordon Bleu?
Generally speaking, Le Cordon Bleu courses are divided into two categories: French cuisine (Cuisine) and French pastries (Patisserie), and I chose the Cuisine path. The courses are divided into different certificates. The first one I took was Cert III in Commercial Cookery, which lasted for 15 months. The first 3 months were basic courses, generally making some introductory French dishes, such as basic stewed beef, stewed chicken, sandwiches, etc. The next 3 months were intermediate courses, which were more advanced than the basic courses in terms of the number and difficulty of dishes. After completing the intermediate course, you will enter the advanced course, and the things you learn will of course be more profound, and the instructors will also have higher requirements. Assuming that the 9-month course is successfully completed, students will be sent to different restaurants for internships (the internship part is also very interesting, students can choose the restaurant of their choice, I will explain more about the internship later). After completing the 6-month internship, you will receive the DIPLÔME DE CUISINE certificate, which means you can find a job in a restaurant!
But if you want to continue to study hard like me, you will enter the six-month Cert IV in Kitchen Management. In this course, you will learn more about kitchen management and be exposed to many different contemporary cuisines, such as molecular cuisine. After completing Cert IV, you can obtain the CERTIFICAT DE CHEF DE PARTIE CUISINE certificate.
In the last six months, students will enter the Advanced Diploma of Hospitality Management. This part is to give students a deeper understanding of the structure and management of the catering industry. Therefore, the theoretical part will be more involved, including restaurant management, revenue and expenditure management, and even personnel management. After successful completion, students will receive the certificate of DIPLÔME AVANCÉ DE GESTION CULINAIRE - CUISINE, which is also a formal graduation!
How is tuition calculated?
Le Cordon Bleu is known for being an expensive institution. If you only study Cert III, the entire course costs about AUD38,000, which is about HKD200,000. If you want to complete the entire Diploma course, the total tuition fee is about AUD63,000, which is about HKD300,000. This does not take into account living expenses, including rent, food, transportation and other expenses. If all these are taken into consideration, the total budget for two years will be around AUD120,000-150,000, which is about HKD600,000-800,000. Expensive? Of course, Le Cordon Bleu courses only require 3 days of classes per week, and the remaining 4 days are mostly free (but don't forget to have homework), so you can find a part-time job to help you make up for it!
Are Le Cordon Bleu instructors strict?
I have heard many people who studied Le Cordon Bleu in France say that the tutors are very mean and would curse at you at any time. Fortunately, the situation here in Melbourne is a little different. There are tutors from all over the world, and of course there are many French tutors. Perhaps influenced by Australia's racial inclusion and friendly culture, most of the tutors here are very friendly. Of course, the tutors are very strict with the students' exercises, hygiene, safety awareness, time management, etc., but they will never curse at you at any time. On the contrary, many tutors use encouragement to motivate students. Students will have better confidence in learning in such an environment.
What challenges will you encounter?
Although anyone can take the Le Cordon Bleu course (including those with no cooking experience), from my experience, if you have no cooking experience, it will be quite difficult to study. Although there are only three days of classes per week, these three days are quite intensive, with 10 hours of classes per day, and basically there is no moment to stop. The first three hours are generally relatively easy theoretical classes, and the next three hours are what we call Demo classes, which is when the instructor demonstrates the dishes to be made that day. Don’t think that the instructor is the only one busy when he is demonstrating. You will find that all the students are concentrating on taking notes because the instructor will not repeat what he is doing. If you miss it, it means that there is a high chance that you will make mistakes in the next part of personal practice. Once you make a mistake, you will most likely get a fail in the class that day, and a fail means that you have to spend some time to do it again.
After the demo class, the next 3-4 hours are for individual practice. Generally speaking, students have to finish 2-3 dishes within 3 hours, which is very urgent and basically does not allow you to chat with other classmates. When the dishes are finished and the instructor tastes and grades them, all students must immediately enter the cleaning mode and clean the entire kitchen before leaving the class. In this way, the one-day course is finally over.
Does it sound tiring? This is unavoidable. But when you really love doing this, the feeling of being tired is actually a kind of enjoyment, which makes you look forward to becoming a better person.