At such a school, you can quickly master culinary techniques that took chefs of centuries past lifetimes to create and perfect. As at other schools, you can make good friends while studying in a culinary program, but you can also learn deeper trust and skilled interpersonal organization it takes to function as part of a team in a restaurant or hotel. If you're so inclined, you can learn how to manage such a team. You might even learn how to make dozens of new dishes well enough to dazzle your family and friends, and not just your customers.

Along with two-year associate's and four-year bachelor's degrees, culinary-arts school of art Institute in Denver offers a one-year cooking program for older students who already have degrees in other disciplines or who want to enter industry quickly.

Whats most discouraging is that career changers may be naive about what it takes to become a professional chef, and therefore most do not fare well in their courses.

Most people get into culinary because of glamor. You have to be organized, think on your feet and have a certain temperament for it. There is stress, heat, hot oils, boiling water, sharp knives. You have to be organized and focused and have a real passion for it. Cooking in a restaurant is very different from cooking at home.